


Hiraeth

by follyofyouth



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Family Dynamics, Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Non-Graphic Violence, Poor Life Choices, background Jack/Edward, background Nick/Jenny, emotional intelligence is overrated, feelings are hard lying is easy, post-apocalyptic entrepreneurship, what are coping mechanisms?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-01
Updated: 2017-07-09
Packaged: 2018-09-03 12:51:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 64,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8714659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/follyofyouth/pseuds/follyofyouth
Summary: After a chance meeting with a stranger, Jenny Lands finds herself rebuilding her life yet again.





	1. One

Hiraeth

_Welsh_

(n) a homesickness for a home to which you cannot return

 

Downstairs, someone slams a door.

It’s enough to snap Jenny out of her half-slumber, a futile attempt to sleep in for once on a Saturday morning. Instead, she is awake, blankets pulled over her head against the sunlight streaming in through the curtains.

Jack had insisted she take this room when she’d first moved in. He’d said the sunlight would be good for her. Edward had stood by, silent sympathy in his eyes. It is moments like this that she regrets her abject acceptance of her fate.

Her bed is good, comfortable. Sequestered here, there are no problems. Here, in bed, everything is right.

Or, so she tells herself.

Wilhelmina’s voice, pitchy and irate, carries up through the floorboards, and Jenny reminds herself that there are far worse fates than her own.

She pushes herself into a sitting position, and then a standing one, letting out a quiet groan. No one had ever warned her that, even with a near magical serum, you could still wake to feel every second of 232 years of wear and tear in your very bones.

Admittedly, she’s not sure who she expected to warn her.

She’s given up on make up, but still sits at her small vanity to braid her hair back. Market days always require a touch more care than those spent lounging, or perhaps languishing, about the house.

She pauses, stopping to stare at the photo strip tucked into her mirror. It’s them, crowded into a too small photo booth on a too hot day at Navy Pier, the way she’d though things would always be. They look happy, even with her wilted curls and his sunburnt nose. This is how she likes to remember their life, how she likes to remember him.

She can’t dwell, not today. Today, she must get up and get dressed. She must brush her teeth and follow along to market. There are supplies to be bought, information to be exchanged. She must be alert, ready for trouble. She must not think of blood and alleyways, could have beens and never will bes. It is not what Nick would have wanted.

When she finally makes it to the kitchen, Edward is waiting for her in the hallway outside, mug in hand.

“Figured you’d rather avoid the circus this morning,” he says, handing to her.

She nods. “Thanks.” She pauses for a sip, enjoying the first piping sip of tea. “Sounded like a real blowout.”

“Emogene’s gone.”  
  
She shrugs. “Six weeks. Like clockwork.”

“Wasn’t always like this,” Edward sighs. 

“Wilhelmina still taking it badly?”  
  
He nods. “Can’t blame her. Em’s gotten sloppy.” 

“She’ll be back. Or,” Jenny pauses, drawing in another sip. “You’ll send someone to go get her and bring her home.”

Edward grins slyly for a moment before his expression softens. “I know today’s hard, J. How’re you holding up?”

She shrugs. “I got up. I got dressed. It’s something.”

He nods again. “I’ve gotta check in with Jack, and then we’ll head out.”

She downs the remainder of her tea. It will be good to go spend some time out in the world.

\--

It doesn’t hurt her to see Boston like this. She’d cut her ties with the city when she’d left for school and moving back had been a need, not a want. She’s not sure she’ll ever really forgive its streets for what they stole from her.

This is not Chicago. This was never their home.

The trek is uneventful. There’s the odd feral ghoul, quickly dispatched, and the sounds of gunfire somewhere in the distance, but they are otherwise left to their own devices.

Bunker Hill buzzes. Caravans have just arrived from DC, bearing news and supplies. Children dart about and buyers are already wheedling out better prices from sellers still new to the art of the haggle. In the remnants of the memorial, a new set of eyes keeps watch over the proceedings. She cannot make out much of him when he changes shifts with the next watch, only his sunglasses glinting in the sunlight. He’s a new face, and Jenny makes a note to ask Kessler about him.

When it comes to the actual mechanics of maintaining the household, they manage like this: Edward handles the help while she handles the supplies. He has an eye for talent; she has learned to negotiate well. When the system works the way it’s meant to, trips to Bunker Hill are incredibly efficient, largely routine affairs.

Stockton’s man has the full set of holotapes from a Miss Moira Brown, a complete archive of the contents of the library in Alexandria. She had traded a copy of their complete Massachusetts Surgical Journal collection in exchange. On one hand, the trade is business-oriented; Jack has been on the hunt for several books rumored to have been in the library’s collection. On the other, it is an exercise in frivolity; for all the potential research value contained within the collection of books, she is most interested in their digitized archives of _The Unstoppables_. There are also a few seed samples sent from the labs at Rivet City; while their own hydroponic system has been remarkably efficient at providing, she’s eager to add a little more variety into their diet.

Mostly, she likes to hear the news. A girl out from one of the D.C. vaults quite nearly gave her life to activate a massive water purifier on the Potomac Basin; the whole Capital Wasteland has access to clean water now. The Enclave made, ostensibly, their last stand in trying to seize the purifier for their own. There’s even rumor that the Brotherhood activated some sort of giant robot in the course of the offensive; Jenny doesn’t quite believe that one. She may be two-centuries past her assigned expiration date, but even then, there are some things beyond belief.

She prods for updates, too, about the ghouls thrown out of Diamond City with the rise of its new mayor. She and Edward had had friends there, a handful of other pre-war relics like themselves. She’s heard of some fleeing to Goodneighbor and others still setting up a small farm up to the northeast. She worries for Arlen most of all; there’s only so much a person can take.

Edward spends his time recruiting. Jenny’s not sure how he does it, how he gauges the balance between ruthless killer and reliable contractor. She tries not to worry too much, though; after two hundred years, she’s fairly certain he and Jack have at least established a thorough vetting system before placing anyone at Parsons.

Kessler doesn’t have much for her about the new guard; he’d rolled into town a few weeks ago, needed work, and had quickly proven himself handy with a sniper rifle. He wasn’t wild about stationed at the top of the old monument, especially in its decrepit state, but seemed to come around after a chat with Stockton.

“Why the shades?” She asks. “Looks like its about to pour.”

“Don’t start,” the other woman answers. “He keeps the damn things on day and night.”

 --

The trip home is wet, but again, largely uneventful --- a by-product of having an additional five, heavily armed traveling companions.

Argos rolls on along his perimeter check, wheels clattering against the cobblestone. He draws a few wary looks from the potential new hires, whose eyes drift toward the minigun mounted on his arm.

“He’s defensive,” Edward offers. “Makes it easier to keep the house secure.”

None of the men seem comforted.

“If they can’t handle Argos, they’re never gonna handle Jack,” Jenny mutters under her breath.

“ Appreciate the confidence, Ms. Lands.”

“Anytime, Mr. Deegan. Anytime.”

\--

She doesn’t stick around for introductions. If she’s heard Jack’s spiel once, she’s heard it a thousand times, and besides, she’s eager to get the new plantings started.

The garden had been her idea, mentioned in passing her first week after moving in. She hadn’t expected anyone to take her seriously when she’d offered the idea of turning the disused wine cellar into an indoor greenhouse; the financial investment alone made it impossible for most.

“She’s got a point,” Edward had said. “If the worst really does come to pass, it’s not like going to the supermarket is really going to be an option.” 

Jack had paused, considering the proposal and the space. “How quickly could you two get it up and running?”

  
She’d turned to Edward, not quite believing what she had heard. “It’ll take about a week to get all the parts,” he’d begun. “Lights, troughs, seeds. And probably a few days to get the wiring and plumbing set, and a few more to get the initial planting done.”

When all was said and done, it had taken them fifteen days from inception to completion.

It had helped to have Edward there, not only for his ability to rig the electrical and plumbing components, but for his ability to listen. He’d started gently enough, prying things out of her slowly. It started with why the gardening bug, which led to Chicago, which led to Nick, which led to, well, the whole mess that had brought her to Cabot House in the first place. By the time they were done, Edward had heard it all. He never faltered, never flinched, even when she finally broke, tears soaking through his shirt as she told him about Nick’s murder and her own miscarriage, her two greatest losses jut a few weeks apart. It was like being six, again, Edward comforting her over a skinned knee and walking her the rest of the way home. 

It was the first time she truly believed things might get better. They wouldn’t be okay, but they might improve.

  
The bombs had somewhat scuttled that notion, but still. Life continued on.

The garden smells of greenery and moist soil. The tomatoes reach up towards the top of their cage; the herbs stand ready to be harvested. The lights beam overhead in defiance of the rain soaking the earth above. It is her proof that there is hope.

She misses strawberries, though, she’s hopeful the new seeds will do something to ameliorate the problem.

Jenny had never liked dirt, liked planting, as a kid. Sure, her mother kept small, beautiful gardens, and yes, her grandmother grew determined little apples, but it wasn’t until she was living in Chicago, in a rundown little apartment with a beautiful, communal rooftop garden, that the urge to grow something ever really took root.

Once everything’s settled in, she heads back up into the house, and towards Jack’s lab.

“Ah! Jenny. How was market?” He asks with good cheer.

“Productive,” she answers, pulling the holotapes from her bag. “These came in. Complete contents of the Alexandria Public Library.”

“Wonderful! Wonderful. Any other news?”

“There’s a group of ghouls living in the old Museum of Natural History. Some of them are getting industrious, heading into the museum proper to gather what information and resources they can. Might be worth it to get in touch with a woman by the name of Carol down there.” 

“Local leadership?”

Jenny shrugs. “I wouldn’t go that far. She owns the local hotel. Mothers the newcomers. I hear she has a finger on the pulse of the place, so she seems like your best bet for contact person.”

“Still no word on an Air and Space excavation?”  
  
“Sorry, Jack,” she offers. “Going theory is that it’s too dangerous. Maybe some of the Natural History ghouls will go digging, if their current effort nets anything useful.”

“And the crash reports?”  
  
“What crash reports? Like, a vertibird crash? Because I’m fairly certain scavvers have already picked those over.”

“No, Jack. Nothing on the crash,” Edward chimes in from below a piece of machinery.

Jenny thinks, not for the first time, that Jack and Edward are the best example she has ever seen of the argument that relationships are a balance. Yes, she and Nick were each other’s counterweights when it came to the so-called work-life balance, but mostly, they fed off of one another. Investigations and contacts and leads somehow rolled seamlessly into sex and brunch and holiday plans.

Jack and Edward are different. Edward is practical, well grounded. He is a product of South Boston and his own efforts to get out. He is sensible. Reserved. _He knows what it’s like to struggle_ , Jenny thinks. _He knows what it’s like to rely on yourself_.

Jack is theoretical, abstract, more interested in the _if_ than in the _how_. Yes, Jack had worked, but it had been with the backing of money, of a once-influential father. Jack is gregarious. He is without shame, even in his more unusual beliefs. His belief that things will just _work_ is beyond her comprehension and, she suspects, even beyond Edward’s.

Somehow, though, they fit together.

Regardless, she realizes a little strategic redirection might not hurt. “How were the new recruits?”

“Enthusiastic. Perhaps a bit skittish, but enthusiastic.”  
  
“They’re looking to build their rep,” Edward adds. “Move up a little in the merc world.”

“And we pay well,” Jenny says. “Probably doesn’t hurt. How’d they take the customary interview?”

Edward groans. 

 _So much for strategic redirection_ , she thinks.

“What is it that you two find so objectionable about it? It’s a valid question.”  
  
“Even when the term ‘standard hiring practices,’ meant anything, it generally didn’t include questions about, well ---"

“Aliens,” Edward finishes for her. “The reds? Sure. But not aliens.”

“When you hired me, I didn’t know how to react. And that was _with_ the benefit of being prepared for it.”

“I thought you were pulling my leg, at first.” The ghoul admits.

“Didn’t you two ever _wonder_?” Jack asks, exasperated.

“Well, _sure_ ,” Jenny starts. “But it was mostly about whether or not we’d have money for groceries."

“Or the electric,” Edward adds.

Jack stares at them both for a moment. “Well, that _would_ explain it, then.”

“Most people nowadays are more worried about where they’re getting their next job, their next meal, or their next fix to consider the unknown.” Edward continues. “We’ve all been shielded from the worst of it.”

“Point being, they’re as taken aback by the question as we were.” Jenny adds.

“True, true,” Jack muses. “But still. It’s important to know who’s open to more extreme possibilities.”

“So, aliens it is, then?”

Jack grimaces at her flippancy. “Aliens it is.”

\---  
  
By dinner, Wilhelmina’s mood has not improved. She speaks only to Jenny, and even then, it’s only to ask for salt. Jack shoots Edward a furtive look over his glasses: _here we go again_.

Jenny can’t entirely blame her. The woman’s only daughter runs off into the Commonwealth, no plan, and no direction. With raiders, mutants, the Institute, and your run of the mill sickos, it’s not the best development --- especially with said daughter’s taste in men.

Still, this is what Emogene _does._ It’s what she’s done for the better part of the last two decades. She always manages to make it back in one piece, none the worse for the wear, and itching for a dose of the serum. As long as that’s in play, she’ll always come back to roost.

“That was worse than usual,” she mutters to Edward over the dishes.

“Wasn’t just Emogene,” he answers. 

Jenny sighs. “So, the Lorenzo issue again?”

Edward offers a vague “Mmm, ” as good a sign as any that the issue had reared its head again, that the conversation had taken the same inevitable path, that Wilhelmina was as unsatisfied with its conclusion as she ever was.

Yes, she had spent time in Parsons following her arrest, but had never noticed anything odd, anything out of the ordinary. Despite over two hundred years in Cabot House, as a de facto member of the Cabot family, she has never met Lorenzo, nor does she ever expect to. Trips to Parsons are few, and taken only as a matter of absolute necessity.

If it were only Jack who feared the man, she would be skeptical. Jack is brilliant, yes, but is also blessed with a brilliant imagination, a tendency to read too far into things. It’s Edward and Emogene’s fears that truly offer her confirmation of the possible threat.

After all, it had been Jack and Emogene who had originally come up with the plan to subdue Lorenzo, and Edward who had figured out how to keep the man confined despite the difficulties of the post-apocalypse. Hell, keeping Lorenzo contained was of such dire consequence in the immediate aftermath of the bombs that Edward had exposed himself to a near lethal dose of radiation to make sure the asylum held. Though he’d never taken his looks too seriously, the resulting ghoulification had still been a major sacrifice, an indication of the threat Lorenzo truly posed.

Wilhelmina had never supported it. She truly believed her husband was still there, that he just needed to come to his senses. On some level, Jenny understands. If Nick had come back from a case a different man, she’s not sure she would have believed it either. She knows she would have fought for him; why wouldn’t Wilhelmina fight for her husband?

Jenny tries not to think about it. The serum aside, there’s very little about the tale that ends well. And, even then, she’s not really sure if the serum is all that great a boon. Yes, they are immortal, functionally. Yes, they have survived the bombs, the radiation, the intervening centuries. But what are they doing? They’re holed up, ensconced in books and experiments behind a Sentry Bot with a small personal army at their disposal. But, for what?

For science? For knowledge?

 _For love,_ she thinks, watching Jack and Edward in the doorway _._  

\--

She wakes that night with a start. There’s gunfire close, and it takes her a moment to realize it’s not in her dream; it’s outside her window. It’s not Nick being gunned down; it’s some other poor bastard.

She couldn’t save Nick.

She might not be able to save whoever’s downstairs.

It’s stupid. Impulsive. Reckless.

She moves the curtain aside, gently. There’s a man, staggering along the fence of the small green, doubled over. She can’t make out much, but he doesn’t look like a raider.

 _This is a bad idea_ , she tells herself, as she shrugs on a sweater. _He could be a robber. Or worse_.

 _Edward would pitch a fit_ , as she pulls on a pair of galoshes.

 _Just because you’ve spent the better part of two centuries reading every medical text you can get your hands on doesn’t make you a doctor_ , as she grabs the first aid kit, then gently shuts the door.

 _You would have done it for Nick_ , as she steps out into the night air, eyes darting around.

 _He would have said you were out of your mind_ , as she realizes she’s unarmed.

 _He would have helped anyway_ , as she rolls the now collapsed man over.

It takes a minute for her to realize that she’s seen the man before, that he was the guard she’d spotted in Bunker Hill this morning. He’s still sporting his sunglasses, now accessorized with a stylish belly wound.

She thinks, for a moment, that she is going to throw up.

It’s not the blood, not the wound. It’s not even her nerves as she hauls the man to his feet. She can handle Jack, can handle Edward. She’s even relatively certain she can handle taking care of any lingering after effects.

But she looks at him, at the trail of blood behind him, and can only see Nick.

It’s the gunfire. It’s the wound. It’s being in this place, in this city, on this day. It’s the ache she feels every morning, and the emptiness she fears every night. It’s blood soaking through cotton and the way his breath is too wet, too ragged.

She won’t leave him.

There is the matter of where to keep him, though. The house is, obviously, out of the question. There are too many people; there would be too many questions. More importantly, it’d be a serious breach of security. Jack may like to interview those who catch Edward’s eye, but even then, they don’t get near the house without first passing the body man’s litmus test.

The simple fact is that they live in balance, on borrowed time. Introducing an unknown is dangerous. She cannot, and will not, endanger the people she has come to care so deeply about.

She also will not leave this man to die. 

Instead, she drags him to the side of the house, through the alley, and into the small building made to appear abandoned. The ground is slick, and she struggles to keep the man upright, bundling him into the small, makeshift, two-story shed.

Once upon a time, it housed an icehouse; then a summer kitchen; then, a guesthouse; now, the generator for the entire Cabot complex. It is small and secure; Edward had included the building in the post-war renovations, allowing it to keep power and running water. There is a small cot mounted against the wall, and the small guesthouse bathroom had been left intact. 

It is perfect.

She bundles him through the door before locking it behind them, and lowering him gently to the floor. She shrugs off her sweater, tossing it aside before kneeling down gingerly next to him. She opens the kit, and begins her task, pulling on gloves, and gently lifting away the layers of clothing from the wound.

Or, more accurately, _wounds_ , as she quickly realizes.

There are two holes, a perfect entry and exit, through the left side of his gut.

She bites back the bile rising in her throat, and peels his shirt over his head, knocking his sunglasses asunder. His eyes are glassy when he meets briefly meets her gaze.

Jenny recognizes a dying man when she sees one.

She could let him pass, load him up with Med-X and give him someplace quiet and safe to spend whatever time he has left. It’d be the merciful thing to do, the sensible thing to do. She would have helped in her own small way. She wouldn’t have left him out there to die. She would have at least given him some dignity.

But this is all too close, all too familiar. He is not Nick, but it might as well be Nick’s face gazing up at her for the way her hands are shaking. The man might have a wife, a husband, a mother, a father, a brother, a sister, a friend, There might be someone waiting for him, someone wondering where he is, someone who will go through life with a hole, an emptiness that nothing quite fills, nothing quite repairs.

So, she gives him a dose of Med-X.

Binds his wounds as best as she can.

Monitors the transfusion from the sterile blood pack.

And stabs him with a dose of the serum.

As far as stupid, reckless, egregiously _bad_ decisions go, this one is up there. Keeping the serum’s existence on the down low is paramount to keeping off the radar of everyone ranging from petty crooks to raiders to the Institute itself. Even without Lorenzo, there’s a hundred million ways everything could blow up in their faces, and any one of those players would be enough to do it.

She’ll just have to hope her patient doesn’t notice.

Dragging him onto the cot is a challenge all its own. He’s half a foot taller, and practically dead weight. It’s been years –centuries, really– since she’s had to do any heavy lifting and she is woefully unprepared. Finally, after much time and effort, she gets him onto his side on the mattress.

She turns her attention, then, to the layers of clothing cast off in pursuit of the wound. There’s a tattered shirt, a leather jacket, and a cap.

Jenny tells herself she’s looking for a contract, a letter, some hint of this man’s identity. She tells herself that she should check for which caravan team he’s with, so she can let them know their man hasn’t abandoned his duties, that he’s just taken a hit.

She would never admit that what she really wants to find is a little more personal. She wants a note, a scribble, a drawing, something. She wants to picture this man’s family, the people he who count on him. She wants to know whom else she’s spared, who’s waiting for this man to come home. She wants to know that she’s taken this risk, this terrible risk, for someone else, someone beyond this man.

Someone beyond herself.

In the inside pocket of his jacket, her fingers find the sharp crease of a folded note. She can barely make out the penciled writing in the dim glow filtering in from the spotlights; she finds the man’s lighter, and reads by that instead.

The hair on the back of her neck prickles, and she feels goosebumps beginning to rise along her arms.

There has been talk of the Railroad for almost as long as there has been talk of the Institute. In theory, she likes them. If the stories about synths are true, that they are sentient, that they are indistinguishable from a human, that they are stripped of their agency and threated as chattel, then she is glad that there is someone who cares, someone who is willing to help them.

But there are other stories, too, stories of entire towns wiped clean in the night, their inhabitants’ belongings still scattered about. There are never any bodies. There are never any signs of struggle. There is just a vast silence.

She swallows hard, and tucks the note back into the jacket. Plausible deniability will not save them if the Institute has a tail on the man. She holds her breath, listening for what she doesn’t know. Outside, Argos rolls on. There is the faint scampering of mole rats. The generator hums.

 _There’s nothing to be done_ , she tells herself. _You’ve made your bed, now lie in it._

She hopes that if the Institute _is_ coming that they have the decency to be quick about it. End them, end the man, and move on. There’s no need to make anyone suffer.

 _If you’re out there_ , she thinks. _Get us while we sleep. Don’t make Jack or Edward go without the other._

Behind her, the man stirs.

She gets up, and heads for the door. She’ll have to leave a note explaining _something_ to Edward and Jack. She figures she can tell them a mostly true story; as far as she knew, as far as she should have ever known, the man was just one of the Bunker Hill guards. It never hurts to have a reputation for being helpful, especially with Jack’s occasionally strange requests of the traders and caravaners. They can know about the Med-X, the blood pack, the bandages; they don’t need to know about the serum. They can never know about the Railroad.

 _Sins of omission_ , her grandmother’s voice echoes through her mind. _The things you don’t say matter every bit as much as the things you do._

She’s back in the shed, water and mutfruit in hand, books under her arm, before the sun even rises.

\--

Edward brings her breakfast and a gun in the morning, and lunch in the early afternoon.  
  
“How’s your friend doing?"

Jenny shrugs. “He’s got a bit of a fever, but I guess that isn’t all that surprising. He’s been out of it since I hauled him in last night.”

“Was a hell of a risky thing you did.”

She braces herself for a lecture, for a talk, but it never comes. “Nick would have been furious,” she concedes. “Would have told me it was a damn dangerous thing to do on my own.”

“He would have been right.”

“What was I supposed to do?” She asks, not really expecting an answer. “Leave him out there? It’s not like ringing up the ambulance is really much of an option these days. He wouldn’t have made it back to Bunker. God knows he wouldn’t have made it to Diamond City. I couldn’t … I … a gut shot’s a terrible way to die. I couldn’t just _watch_.”

“Not when we had we he needed to have a fighting chance.”

Jenny relaxes, letting go of the tension she hadn’t realized she’d been carrying in her shoulders. “Yeah,” she exhales. “Something along those lines.”

“He armed?”  
  
“Was,” she says, pointing toward the now-folded pile of clothes. “There’s a holster in there, but no heater. Must’ve dropped it somewhere.”

“Or lost it to whoever jumped him. Some punk who needed the caps for a fix.”

“Thought we got out of the old neighborhood,” she jokes. “You know, moved up in the world.”

“You can bomb it to hell, but Boston is still Boston.”

“Can’t even think about what Southie must be like these days.”

“Let’s not find out.” 

She lets out a short laugh. “Agreed. There’s enough danger around the neighborhood. Things any better on the home front?”

It’s Edward’s turn to laugh. “Come on, J, you know the storm never passes that quickly.”

“Stranger things have happened!”

 “Pigs ain’t flyin’ yet.”

“Do you think any pigs still exist?”

“Why? Got a craving for bacon?”

“Edward!” 

He grins. “I’ll leave you to it, Florence Nightingale.“

Her charge is still sleeping soundly when darkness falls. She ventures back to the house for a pillow and sleeping bag, unwilling to leave him unsupervised. She is still nervous, but reasons that, if the Institute wanted this man, they would already have found him, and they would all already be dead. After all, why risk missing your target?

Her gut still prickles when she thinks of the letter. It is the first real secret she has ever kept from Edward, or Jack. It weighs her down, reminds her that actions have consequences, that those consequences have a far greater potential impact than the loss of her own life. More than anything, she _wants_ to tell them. They’d figure something out. There would be a plan.

But she’s not sure they’d ever trust her again.

She can’t risk that.

Sometime around ten, the man stirs, slowly coming to.

“Easy, sailor,” Jenny starts, rising from her perch on the floor. “Your guts are all back where they should be, but you’ve still lost a lot of blood.”

“Where _am_ I?” He asks, and Jenny almost drops her mug at the California accent.

“In a shed. Not too far from Bunker Hill. What’s the last thing you remember?”

“How’d you find me?”  
  
“You weren’t exactly inconspicuous. It’s not every damn night a man gets shot outside my window.”

“You’re shitting me,” He groans. “That huge house, it’s actually occupied?”

“The Sentry Bot, spotlights, and ‘KEEP OUT’ sign weren’t enough of a tip off?”  
  
“I’ve seen some weird stuff out in the ‘Wealth.”

“Welcome to Cabot House.”

He starts to push himself into a sitting position, admits defeat with a wince and a muttered “Alright, then.”

“You had a clean entry and exit. That doesn’t just heal over night.”

“Why help me out?”

“What can I say? You were my type; bloody, dying men have always left me weak in the knees.”

She grimaces internally. It’s a dark joke, even by her standards. 

He laughs, then winces again. “You got a name?" 

“Name’s Jenny.”

“Nice to meet you, Jenny. Call me Deacon.”

\--

“So,” he ventures during breakfast the next morning. “What’s your story? Aside from patching up strange men.”

“Officially, I’m a research assistant, and one half of the house’s staff.”

“Unofficially?”

“I read a lot, and sometimes venture out. I negotiate with traders. I take care of the gardens.”

“Gardens?”

“We have a sort of greenhouse. In the basement.”

He eyes her over his sunglasses, now back perched on his face. “You’re bullshittin’ me.” 

“You don’t believe me?”  
  
“I know a story when I hear one.”

“Stay there,” she says, though she’s not quite sure where she expects him to go. She breezes into the house, sidestepping the second round of the Wilhelmia-Jack debacle, throwing a sympathetic glance in Edward’s direction.

Descending into the garden, she finds herself strangely excited. The apple trees were one of the last additions, brought in by burly men in the last few days before the bombs. They’d had a hard time the first few weeks; Edward once said that she’d gotten them to thrive on force of will alone.

Luck, love, force of will: the how had never mattered to her. It still doesn’t.

The latest crop had only really come into its own within the last day or so. She’d been planning to harvest them in earnest just after the trip to Bunker Hill; her preoccupation with the man —with Deacon— had superseded that. Edward had taken up the slack in her absence, leaving her a basket of freshly picked fruit.

She grabs an apple, polishes it off, and heads back up the stairs, and out the kitchen door.

The sun is shining outside, and the world is quiet. These are her favorite kinds of days.

“Alright,” she begins, shutting the shed door, and hiding the fruit behind her. “What’d you know about apples?”

“Apples? You mean like Dandy Boy?”

“I mean like real apples, ones that grow on trees. ”

“Juicy red fruit. People used to bake’em into all sorts of things. Heard there’s a lab down in Capital Wasteland, trying to get them planted in a hydroponic system.”

“Ever had one?”

“’Scuse me?”

“You heard me.”

“You see a lot of apple trees around here?”

“I don’t know,” she says, polishing the apple against the side of her dress before holding it up. “You tell me." 

“Where did you---“  
  
“Told you. I spend a lot of time in the garden.” She crosses the room, depositing it in his hand. “Try it. We generally have a pretty good crop.”

She watches his skepticism recede with each bite.

“How?” he asks.

She bites back a smile. “The folks who were living here before the war were concerned about how they would eat if the worst came to pass. They set up the greenhouse. Every subsequent generation’s just maintained it.”

“Must make resupplying a little cheaper.”

“I wish. Can’t grow bullets. Or books.”

“Wait, you have books? Books that aren’t burned, waterlogged messes?”

This time, she can’t hold back the grin. “We have a garden. Are you really surprised to hear there are books?” She shakes her head. “You’re gonna be here a few days more at least. Got any requests?”

“Something hopeful?” He ventures.  
  
“You’re askin’ the wrong woman.”

“Surprise me, then.”

She comes back with an armful of books, mostly hardboiled pulp. She’d never taken up a taste for the literary canon; Nick had teased her about it on the day he’d finally taken notice of her bookshelves.

 _“Got a thing for detectives, Lands?”_  
  
"Just one.”

She loves them, but there’s a reason she keeps them in their boxes.

“These should keep you busy,” she says, setting the pile next to the cot.

“Damn,” he says, picking the top one up. “Pristine." 

\--

A week in, and she’s gotten used to him. He’s back on his feet, and through a good chunk of her library. Emogene’s still slumming in somewhere in the ‘Wealth and Wilhelmina has graduated to the silent treatment for them all, but it somehow feels far less onerous than usual.

Naturally, she isn’t looking forward to the conversation she has to have.

He’s back in his gear, now free from blood, getting ready to head out. The serum’s effects were subtle, but she’s experienced enough to spot them. There’s a scar across his back that’s slowly been fading, and another ropey one on his left bicep that’s starting to sink level. The entrance and exit wounds aren’t even visible. He looks healthy, a miracle in and off itself.

“Deacon, I need a minute.”

There’s a lump in her throat and her hands have gone clammy.

“Lay it on me.”

She thinks about abandoning it altogether. There’s no reason he ever needs to know. She could let him go, let him walk away with as a nice a memory of being shot as is possible. She doesn’t need to end this on a sour note.

“I know ….” Her heart is pounding. “I know you’re not _really_ a guard. Not full time anyway. I know you’re Railroad.”

He laughs. “Jenny---“

“I read the note. The one in your pocket.”

He’s quiet now, unreadable behind his sunglasses.

"I wasn’t trying to snoop. But … I thought you _were_ a guard. And I wasn’t sure you were gonna make it. I’ve been on the other end of that, and, if you had family, well, I figured someone should tell them … if … you know … if you didn’t.” She pauses, swallowing hard. “So, I read the note. And spent the first two days you were here convinced the Institute was about to kick down the door.”

She can’t look at him. Instead, she focuses on wiping her hands down the front of her apron, just trying to get through her speech.

“Look, I’ve got people I have to protect. I’m not crazy about the thought of the boogeyman showing up to end us all. But … if you end up in a scrape or you need something or somewhere to lie low, well. Come find me. Is what I’m getting at.”

There’s silence.

She swallows hard.

“How do I get back in?” He asks. “Waltzing through the front door isn’t my style.”

“I’ll add your palm print into the system. You can get in and out through the back gate. It’ll ping my terminal.”

Another beat.

“You sure about this?” He asks.  
  
She’s not. She doesn’t want to put the house, or her family, in danger. She should back out, tell him to forget it. She should never have brought it up. There are levels of stupidity, of wanton disregard for personal safety and the safety of others, but this is a new personal low.

That’s the story she’s told herself for the last four nights, lying in bed. If she were sensible, reasonable, she would never even have broached the subject.

But her heart has always ruled her head.

Her heart, the bastard, says ‘do the right thing,’ says ‘ you can’t just stand by.’ _You hated the injustice you saw when the world was still whole; it sharers, and you’re suddenly willing to roll over and let it slide?_ She thinks of _The Little Prince_ , of foxes and roses: You are responsible for what you tame.

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

He considers this for a moment. “You’re gonna need a codename.”

“Codename?”

“This isn’t without its risks. Codenames are the first line of defense.”

She chews on her lip. “You got any suggestions?”  
  
“It’s your call. Codenames are a personal business.”

“Call me ‘Nightingale,’” she offers.

“Like the nurse?”

“Like the song." 

\--

She doesn’t recognize him when she sees him next, only believes it’s him when he starts quoting Raymond Chandler books. He’s got a gash on his gun arm, too deep for a bandage. She patches him up and sends him on his way, an apple for good luck.

He shows up again, six months later with another new face, gun arm akimbo, obviously dislocated. It’s a quick visit, a shot of bourbon and a “scream quietly.” He offers her a pained smile and is back out into the night in less than half-an-hour.

In between, the world is quiet. Emogene comes and goes, lingering long enough for the serum to take hold, and a quick chat before she’s off again. Jack grumbles about how she’s already had her Grand Tour and, really, must she keep extending it?

She and Edward keep on their rounds to Bunker Hill. She’s never sure who to look for, but she can’t help wondering if Deacon is there.

A year passes in much the same fashion. She finds him one night huddled in the back of the shed, shaking and sweating.

“This isn’t gonna be pretty,” he offers by means of an apology.

“Wasn’t pretty with you leaking your guts all over, either. What is this, some kind of virus?”

“Detox,” he grinds out. “Took my cover a little too seriously.”

She helps him to his feet, and deposits him on the cot. “Christ, you really are a mess, aren’t you?”

Even with the sunglasses obscuring his face, she can tell he’s sheepish. “Figured if I kicked it once…”

“You could kick it again.” She wraps two fingers around his wrist, and keeps an eye on her watch. “Your heart’s going like a jackrabbit,” she says after a pause. “I don’t know where you were coming from, but you’re lucky you made it here.”

“What’re you gonna tell---“

“Edward? That my guard friend came back, he’s feeling under the weather, and he doesn’t make enough to see a doctor.”

“He’ll buy that?”

“Edward’s pre-War,” she offers. “Grew up on the poor side of town. He’ll understand.”

She feels a twinge of guilt. Sure, she hasn’t yet brought hell down on their heads, but she still doesn’t like lying to Edward.

She’s also not particularly good at it.

 _It’s not_ really _a lie_ , she tells herself on the way into the house. _She_ did _meet Deacon as a Bunker Hill guard. He_ is _feeling under the weather_. _He probably_ doesn’t _have the caps on hand to see a real doctor or get his hands on Addictol_.

Everyone else is asleep as she winds her way to the kitchen, filling a decanter with water, and a glass with juice. She rummages briefly through the pantry, in search of something salty, and coming away with a bag of potato chips.

She’s seen Jet withdrawal before, a lifetime ago. She’d been working a story and stumbled on a group of veterans hooked on the nasty stuff after their stints in Anchorage. They shook and sweated and, usually, ended up right back on drugs again. She’d gone to funerals for two of them before the bombs had fallen.

Deacon’s got the cot blanket pulled around him when she opens the door. He looks like a strangely oversized kid, crunched in the way he is.

“How’d you get clean last time?” She asks, handing him the juice.

“Luck,” he says, taking a sip. “A good babysitter.”

“So, the hard way, then. Just like this.”

“Addictol’s a little out of the price range when you’ve been slamming Jet for a month and a half.”

She grimaces. “Suppose that makes sense. You get something out of it, at least? Other than withdrawal, I mean.”

“Got what I needed,” he offers, taking another sip. “All that’s left to do is pay for it.”

He spends the next two days shaking, shivering, and vomiting. He barely eats, and his skin takes on a waxy pallor. His heart races and the fever refuses to break. The third afternoon, he seizes, and she realizes that the hard way might be too hard; she remembers all too well what happened to the two vets.

Once he’s back, once he’s coherent, she leaves him on the floor, the breakables cleared away, and sets out for Goodneighbor.

She hates traveling alone. Edward’s made sure she’s a good shot, but it’s hard to tell what’s shadow and what’s danger when you’re only relying on your own senses. She knows she’s no match for a group of raiders, let alone a single super mutant.

Once upon a time, the gun in her holster belonged to Nick. It’s a six –shot .44 revolver with a ‘V’ carved into the grip. It had seen him through years of service, gotten him out of plenty of scrapes. She carries it in his memory and, in the faint hope that, if he’s out there, he’s watching over her.

The ramshackle gates of Goodneighbor are comforting, a word she never thought she’d ascribe to this place. She’s dressed to unimpress, years of trips to market having taught her a thing or two about how to blend in. She goes first to Daisy, who’s fresh out. Then to the Hotel Rexford, which likewise leaves her high and dry.

She huffs, and resigns herself to a trip to The Third Rail, and the faint hope that Charlie might have something for his often patrons suffering from a more demanding palette.

She makes it halfway to the bar before Emogene spots her.

“Don’t tell me Jack and Edward sent you out here.”

“Nah,” she offers. “This is my own death-wish errand.”

“Thought you were a bit more choosy in your intoxicants.”

“I’m not here for me,” she says, motioning Charlie over. “Or liquor, actually.”

The blonde’s eyebrows shoot up at the Addictol purchase. “And Jack thinks I’m the only one who gets into trouble,” she drawls. “I know you’re not using, so who’s it for?”

“You can’t tell Jack,” Jenny says, fishing out the caps. “Or Edward.” Charlie hands her the syringe. “Especially not Edward.”

“If it wasn’t for Edward, you’d be as bad as me.”

“If it wasn’t for Edward, I wouldn’t be here.”

“What are you hiding?” Emogene asks, taking a sip of her beer.

“Not what, who.”

The blonde barely manages to keep the liquid from coming out her nose. “You’re hiding some _one_?”

“A friend of mine,” she says, pulling Emogene along as she heads to the bar’s exit. “Works at Bunker Hill. Got himself in a pinch. You know the story.”

“Where is he ---“

“The generator shed.”

Emogene’s face lights up. “Well done, Lands.”

“I’m not proud of myself. Oh, but speaking of things I’m not proud of,” Jenny trails off, rummaging in her bag and pulling out a syringe of the serum. “May it never be said I leave you high and dry.”

“You’re a good woman.”

“If you get into trouble, get out of it with a good story,” Jenny says, turning to leave.

“Should take your own advice!” The blonde calls after her.

The trip home is blessedly uneventful. When she slips back through the door, Deacon is sitting propped against the wall, half-asleep, sunglasses falling down his nose.

“I owe you,” he says as she rolls up his sleeve.

“Find a way to put an end to that abominable classical music station, and we’ll call it even.”

She doesn’t see him for months after that, but Stockton stops her one morning in Bunker Hill, pressing a note and a holotape into her hand.

 _This should be a temporary fix on that classical station_ , the note reads.

She can’t help but smile when Ray Eberle’s voice pours forth from her terminal. 

\--

It’s the middle of 2281 before he appears again, and by that time, she’s half-convinced herself he’s dead. It’s a new year, a new face, but an old shtick: Bunker Hill guard.

He stops her as she makes her rounds, a Dashiell Hammet quote whispered in her ear, and disappears before she can make a sound.

A few months later, he’s back in the generator shed, blood gushing from a cut over his eye.

“Have you considered _not_ wantonly pissing people off?” She asks.

He winces. “Awww, where’s the fun in that?”

“Guess I should be grateful you’re not bleedin’ out your belly.”

“Never gonna live that one down, huh?”

“It’s been four years,” she says, closing the gash. “And my back still hasn’t recovered from hauling your ass in off the green.”

“Don’t look any worse for the wear.”  
  
“That’s the bourbon talking, Deacon. Which reminds me, might want to lay off the firewater.”

“Really,” he says, taking another slug from the bottle. “You haven’t aged a day.”

Jenny laughs. “Really, it’s the bourbon “

She flirts briefly with the idea of telling him, of letting him in on the secret. He’s too drunk to believe her at any rate, but his expression, even with the sunglasses, might still be worth it. Instead, she runs a finger under the newly stitched cut. “Guess I’ll be seeing you with a new face next time,” she ventures. “That bad boy is gonna scar.”

He grins up at her. “Think I can tell’em a Deathclaw did it?” 

\--

It’s almost 2284 by the time he shows up again, though she’s gotten better at spotting him around Bunker Hill, even with the face changes. On one of her sojourns back home, Emogene mentions a drifter around Goodneighbor, who also seems to fit the description; Jenny can’t exactly say she’s surprised.

He’s sick as a dog again, but it’s a new cause: radiation exposure.

“What, did you take a dip in Boston Harbor?” She asks, setting up the second IV of RadAway.

He’s hunched over a bucket, forehead slick with fever sweat. “Heard swimming was good for your health,” he offers.

“Mmm,” Jenny intones. “You’re letting your vanity get the best of you again. You know they can’t see those muscles you’ve got under all those clothes.”

He offers her a half-laugh, half-groan. “Could use Dorian Gray’s portrait artist.”  
  
“You’re not wicked enough,” she counters. “And I don’t think arts patron is really a profession that exists these days.”

“Have you heard Magnolia sing? I’d support that.”

He retches into the bucket again.

“Maybe you’d better focus on supporting your body through the rest of the detox process.”

Deacon groans.

“You ever think of doctoring full-time?” He asks. “You might be able to do some real good out there for people.”

“Me? Nah,” Jenny answers. “It’d feel weird calling myself a doctor when I haven’t gone to medical school, or had much in the way of formal training. I can read all the textbooks I want, but it’s not the same.”

“I don’t know,” Deacon counters. “You’ve always done right by me. “

“Besides,” she continues, unbothered. “I’ve heard enough stories about what goes on out there. People getting mugged, people getting killed,” she pauses, and lowers her voice. “People disappearing.”

“That one really eats at you, huh?”

“Haven’t gotten over what you told me about Stockton’s little girl. Don’t think I ever will.“

“For what it’s worth, I’m pretty sure if she knew, she wouldn’t either.”

She shudders, thinking of the likely fate of Stockton’s biological daughter. “Poor thing. The whole lot of’em.”

Deacon nods, then retches again.

“My feelings exactly.”

\--

By the end of 2285, he’s ended up in the shed three times for the same injury: burns. Each visit brings a new face, a new set of scars, a new cover. She can’t decide if it’s a good or bad sign, and knows better than to ask.

The first time, the face is grim. He barely speaks. She can’t tell if it’s rage or fear, or some combination of the two.

The second time, the face is pained. His gun hand is beginning to blister, and she winces in sympathy when she sees it. It will be a long, slow healing process, and she knows he is not blessed with the option of taking time off.

The third time, the face is weary. There is relief in its features, and a kind of bone deep exhaustion. He drinks from a bottle of something that smells of something somewhere between pain thinner and scotch. He raises a toast to victory, and offers Jenny a shot, laughing at the way her nose wrinkles.

“You only ever offer me the finest liquor,” she groans.

“Gotta pay the piper somehow.” 

\--

He spends the next year as a goddamn fixture in her life, after getting himself hired by Edward under some other alias, and quickly working his way into the body man’s confidence.

Jenny vacillates between wanting to know if the house, if Jack, Emogene, or godforbid, Lorenzo, have some sort of strategic importance, and wanting to be kept in the dark about Deacon’s motives. She’s never seen an ounce of malice in the man, but knows all too well that looks can be deceiving.

He becomes her unofficial bodyguard on outings, tailing her through the markets. She assumes it’s a matter of pragmatism; from the bits and pieces she gets out of him, she figures free, reliable, sympathetic medical care with discretion is difficult to come by. Still, she’s grateful for the extra set of eyes; it’s harder to disappear entirely with someone watching your back.

The stories of kidnappings pick up as the year goes on, and Jack asks Edward to have Emogene shadowed. Deacon takes to the task with aplomb, seeming to enjoy the risks of tailing a mark who’s actively trying to lose him.

She patches him up a few times, though they’re minor scrapes compared to what she’s accustomed to seeing. It feels strange to sit with him in the pristine kitchen on padded chairs, surrounded by gleaming appliances.

In the sitting room, Wilhelmina turns the radio dial to the classical station, and Jenny groans.

“Tell me, mister,” she asks, feigning nonchalance. “What’s your going rate on a big job?”  
  
“How big’s the job? Mr. Deegan pays me 200 caps a week for trailing Ms. Cabot.”

“Mmm,” Jenny intones. “Not really sure how to describe the scope. Part search and find, part demolition.”

“You’ve got my attention.”

“My kingdom if you can blow up that damnable classical station’s transmitter. Or, better yet, it’s station.”

“’Bout eight years of doctoring is my going rate.”

Jenny grins at him.

One afternoon, about four months into Deacon’s tenure with them, Edward knocks on her doorframe. She’s knee deep in translation notes for Jack, five books open on her floor to cross-reference the charts. She’s only half-paying attention, and jumps at the sound.

“Sorry, J,” Edward starts. “Didn’t mean to startle you, but I’ve got a question.”  
  
“Tell Jack I need more time.”

Edward furrows his brow.

“It’s … not about the translation?” She asks.

He shakes his head. “It’s about one of the guys we hired.”  
  
“What’s wrong?” She asks, sitting back on her haunches. “One of’em go missing?”

“One of’em … one of’em’s itchin’ to take you on a date.”

Jenny goes bug-eyed. “ _Who?!_ ”

“Johnny.” _Deacon_.

“Oh,” she says, face softening. “That’s … a surprise.”

“Say the word, and I’ll put a stop to it.”

She sighs. On the one hand, she’s at least confident it’s not actually a date. On the other hand, she’s not sure she’s ready for whatever it is she’s actually being drafted into. “I mean, it’s been 200 years, right?”

“You gotta do what you’re comfortable with. I’ve got your back either way.”

She chews on her lip. _In for a penny, Lands_ , she tells herself. “Let it play out, I guess. See if he gets the guts up. “

Edward nods. “You change your mind, let me know.”

“Appreciate it.”

It takes Deacon two days to ask her, on the way to Bunker Hill, a perfectly bumbling performance, complete with a near inability to make eye contact. She plays the surprised, demure school girl, and graciously accepts.

Her terminal pings later that night, and she ventures down to meet him in the shed.

“Alright, I give up: what’s this about?” She asks.  
  
“Your quiet charm and stunning beauty?”  
  
Jenny rolls her eyes. “Try again.”

“Your refined sense of style and taste?”  
  
“Deacon, I’m wearing pajamas.”

“They’re nice pajamas.”  
  
“Deacon.”

“Alright, you got me. I could use your help on an op.”

“Me? What, somebody get hurt?”

“Negative. Need you to play the distraction.”

Jenny crosses her arms. “I’m a little out of practice,” she says before she can stop herself. _Oh, fuck,_ she thinks, her heart beginning to pound. _Universe, Nick, whoever or whatever’s out there: don’t let him have noticed that._

He raises his eyebrows at her.

“What?” She asks. “Sometimes Emogene needs an accomplice.“

He doesn’t push the issue. “You live in a pre-War house, wear pre-War clothes, and are probably the most knowledgeable person I know when it comes to the old timey stuff. Hell, you could pass for pre-War yourself.”

Jenny bites her tongue to keep from laughing. “Go on.”

“We’ve got a package stalled, and a merc who I’m pretty sure is on the Institute’s take. Rumor has it he’s got a soft spot for old world dames.”

Her lips purse, and her brow furrows. “He lays a hand on me, and I’ll lay’im out.”

“He lays a hand on you, and he’s gonna have trouble,” Deacon offers. “I’m not looking to even put you in range of that.”

“So, what _do_ you need me to do?”

“Rumor has it our guy fancies himself a regular Romeo with the old world blues set. You saunter into Goodneighbor, catch his attention, and get him drinking at the Rail. You keep him occupied, and I get our package out.”

“I’m not going in unarmed.”

“Wouldn’t dream of asking.”  
  
“Alright, you got a deal.”

She tells Edward that the date is set for Saturday, that they’re going out for drinks at The Third Rail, and that she’ll keep an eye out for Emogene. Edward tells her not to bother, that he’s heard Em’s shacked up somewhere in the Upper Stands of Diamond City, and that if she needs an escape clause to let him know, no questions asked. 

Saturday afternoon, she stares into her closet. All of her clothes from her old life are here, including her wedding gown, tucked away in a garment bag. She’s not sure what she’s supposed to wear to attract her mark’s attention, not sure just how ‘old world’ she’s supposed to look.

Her eyes drift to a red dress, _the_ red dress, and her chest clenches. She knows it will do the trick, yes, but it seems wrong to taint it. She’d made that dress, met Nick in that dress, been proposed to in that dress. It had seen her through office parties, precinct Christmases, birthdays, anniversaries.

 _It’s a dress_ , she tells herself.

But that’s bullshit and she knows it. The dress is everything she’s lost wrapped up into one neat package. It’s Nick, and her job, and Chicago, and the paper. It’s Navy Pier, their small green kitchen, and the dive bar they’d first met in. She runs a hand down the side seam, remembering how hard she’d worked to make sure it fit so perfectly, the way she’d admired herself in the mirror before stepping out that fateful night.

She moves it into the garment bag, next to the unworn wedding gown.

She settles on something green and lacy, smart flats, and curled hair. Her face looks strange with make up, and she feels ridiculous concealing a handgun in her pocketbook.

Deacon meets her outside the house, hands tucked into the pockets of slacks she’s never seen before, and gun on display in a shoulder holster.

“Old world enough for ya?” She asks.  
  
“A fashion plate for the 2077 summer season.”

He briefs her as they walk. Their mark’s name is Jimmy Halloran. He’s from the Capital Wasteland, moved up about five years ago. He’s your rank and file merc, but with too many caps to play with for that kind of lot in life. Irma noticed him snooping around the Memory Den just after the latest package arrived, and tipped off HQ. Her job is to catch his eye, keep him busy, and give them enough time to move the package on.

She smoothes down her skirt, and checks her lipstick in a small compact just outside the gate.

“Ready?” Deacon asks.

She nods. “Let’s go.”

She’s half way to the Hotel Rexford when the mark notices her. He’s slick, oily, and probably hasn’t bathed in two weeks. Jenny smiles sweetly, and plays to his vanity. She bats her mascaraed eyelashes and humors him with red-lipped smiles. She offers to buy him a drink in her most honeyed tones, slipping Charlie a generous tip in the process.

He waxes poetic about the world that was, and she fights the urge to burst his bubble, tell him it wasn’t all that great. She feigns horror at his description of baseball, biting back a laugh the whole way, and listens attentively as he describes the wonder of General Atomics Galleria, forever preserved.

She fights the urge to tell him that the Galleria was a tacky publicity stunt, one armed with several hundred accidents waiting to happen, and that if he wants true majesty, he should go find himself a print of the Windy City’s skyline.

Instead, she nods along, _ooh_ ing and _ahh_ ing as expected. He tells her he’s come into some money lately, that there’s _a lot_ more where it came from, and that he’s looking into getting out of the merc business. He’s thinking about setting up in Diamond City’s Upper Stands, decorating it in obeisance to the old world. He tells her how he’s been collecting pieces, found some real museum grade ones, but that he’s still missing the thing that’ll make it all complete.

Deacon’s hand is on her back before their mark can even finish his next thought.

“See you made a new friend, darlin’,” he says, never once breaking eye contact with the other man. His smile’s all teeth, and she can only describe it as predatory.

“You know me,” she starts, looking up at him with what she hopes comes off as adoration. “Just can’t help but find _someone_ to talk to. Mr. Halloran here was just telling me about the General Atomics Galleria.”

“Well,” Deacon drawls. “Isn’t that just _fascinating_? Come on now, darlin’. Time to go.”

“Goodbye, Mr. Halloran,” she says in her sweetest voice. “Lovely to have met you!”

His hand slides around her waist, as they turn to leave, the smile still plastered serenely on her face. Out of view of the gate, he finally drops cover.

“Package is on the move.”

She lets out a long, slow breath. “That’s good news. “

“Find anything out?”

“He’s definitely on the Institute’s take. They’re paying him enough that he’s thinking of getting out of the merc business, retiring to Diamond City.”

“Upper Stands?”

“Where else?”

“Mmmm,” Deacon murmurs. “So, he’s got incentive to stick around Goodneighbor for now. That complicates things.”

“What he needs is incentive to take a goddamn shower. The way he talked, he’s got more than enough caps to pay for a dose of Rad-X and some soap.”

Deacon lets out a short laugh. “Can’t disagree with you there. Thanks for the help, by the way.”

“Anytime.”

“You got a story to tell our Mr. Deegan?”  
  
“Yup. And it’s one that won’t even get you fired.”

She still doesn’t like lying to Edward, but she _has_ gotten better at it. When he asks the next morning, she tells him Johnny was a perfect gentlemen, while also noting that date might have been too strong a term.

“Poor guy’s lonely,” she offers. “He hasn’t been up from Capital Wasteland that long, and he’s still finding his footing. Between you and me,” she whispers. “I don’t think he gets out much, except for work.”

Edward nods. “You okay?”  
  
“Yeah,” she says, smiling at him. “I’m glad it wasn’t actually a date, though. I’m … still not ready. Don’t think I ever really _will_ be.”

“For what it’s worth,” he says, turning to leave. “I’m proud’a you. Even if it wasn’t a real date, there’s no way that was easy.”

Her smile is small, but genuine. “Thanks. I mean it.”

Deacon’s with them through November, and then is gone again, saying something about setting up his own caravan company. He tells Jenny he has plan on the back burner that’s coming to head, one that might finally tip the scales.

She quirks an eyebrow, but knows better than to ask. Instead, she hands him an apple, and wishes him luck 

\--

She hears from him from time to time, by way of Stockton. She even catches a glimpse of him once on his way out of the gate at Bunker.

When her terminal pings late one September night, she isn’t prepared for what she sees.

He’s covered in blood, and reeks of death. There’s burns on his arms, and his right leg is gashed open. The bruise on his cheek is dark and his breathing looks pained. His hands are balled into fists, and his whole body shakes.

“Jesus Christ!” She hisses, shutting the door behind her and hurrying over. “The hell happened?”

“The goddamn … Institute bastards … found us,” he grinds out. “Hit HQ.”

Jenny’s blood runs cold. “Oh my god,” she whispers. “But you said there were families there.”

"When … has the Institute … ever given … a flying fuck…”

She swallows hard. “Come on, let’s get you patched up.”

She pries his hands apart, and doses him with a shot of Med-X before yanking out the glass, and stitching the skin back together.

He’s silent, gritting his teeth as she repeats the procedure with the two cuts on his leg. He doesn’t even wince when she checks his ribs, just a sharp inhale when she finds the three that are cracked.

She’s halfway through cleaning and bandaging his arms when he finally speaks. “We didn’t … stand a chance. Came in so fast … didn’t have time to trip …the defenses. Whole place … reeked. Burning flesh. Never … saw it coming.”

“You do the best with what you can.”

“Someone … sold us out. Or … got sloppy.”

“Deacon.”

“If we got … twenty … of our people out … it was a lot.”

“Deacon.”

“Fens … was six months pregnant … Left her a pile of ash.”

Jenny squeezes her eyes shut. She’s seen this before. She’d lived through it with Nick after a stakeout he’d been on got bloody. After his death, she hoped someone, somewhere bore the same kind of guilt.  
  
“Deacon, you couldn’t have stopped this.”

“All year … all f _ucking_ year … and I got nothing.’”

“You got people out. That’s something.”

He shoves one bandaged hand under his sunglasses, rubbing at his eyes. “It’s … not over.

“What d’you mean?”

“If they got … HQ … they’ll get … the safehouses. … if they haven’t already … Maybe not … all of them … but enough.”

“So,” she says, after a moment. “What now?”

He pushes himself to his feet, groaning. “Every minute I’m here … I’m putting you in more danger.”

“From everything you just said, I’m already in danger. You---“

“No.”

“No what?”  
  
“No … written records of you. No … way to find you.” 

“So, _officially_ , I don’t exist.”  
  
He offers her a weak smile. “Couldn’t … bring down the transmitter tower … Hope this is … enough.”

“Deacon---“

“Nightingale. Jenny. I gotta go.”

“You---" 

“In case we don’t … meet again, thank you. For everything.”

He squeezes her shoulder, and is out the door before she can protest.

She doesn’t hear from him for weeks. Stockton is mum. She hopes that, if he’s dead, it was quick, and that if the Institute’s gotten to him, that he found a way to end it on his own terms, one last _fuck you_ for the road.

She tries to make peace with it.

Then, one day in late October, a man in caravan clothes with a hunting rifle slung over his back offers her a smirk and a salute across the crowd at Bunker Hill. Her eyes bug and the smirk softens into a smile.

If the exchange lasts fifteen seconds, it’s a lot, but it’s enough to carry Jenny through the blowout Jack and Wilhelmina are in the midst of when they make it back to the house. It’s enough to carry her through Nick’s birthday and her should-have-been anniversary. It even carries her through the growing fears of Parsons’ insecurity, of serum shipments being disrupted, and raiders growing more clever in their tactics --- almost as if they were being helped, or worse yet, guided.

It carries her, right until he ends up in the sitting room, brought in by Edward with another man.

This isn’t the typical hire. It’s not a new class of mercs contracted for standard work. Edward’s plan was clear: go out and find the toughest looking sonofabitch he could, with the sole condition that he be easily persuaded by generous payment.

Jenny assumes Deacon is the accessory, rather than the target.

The man next to him is, well. It’s safe to say he doesn’t fill Jenny with confidence.

Clad in a vault suit and leather armor, he’s sprawled across the divan, legs wide, hand on his gun. Ordinarily, she doesn’t question Edward’s judgment when it comes to people, but this time, she’s got her doubts.

The man’s got too much swagger, and too little care; she’s seen even the coarsest mercs drum up the basest decorum on crossing the threshold into the house, but not this one. He just keeps his gaze roaming, appraising everything. She knows it’s not awe, and doesn’t figure it for envy. If anything, it’s almost a blasé disdain.

Deacon, who is nigh impossible to read on the few occasions she’s spotted him in the field, is obviously uncomfortable. He angles himself away from the other man, thumb brushing back and forth across a lighter. The tension between them crackles; she half-expects harsh words or a sharp rebuke to spill forth from either of them.

She lingers in the lab, watching the proceedings from the mezzanine until she’s called down. Edward stands to the side of Jack. The new man is now standing, and Deacon rises to his feet as she descends the stairs.

“Gentlemen,” Jack begins. “My research assistant, Ms. Lands.”

“Don,” The vault suit says, extending a hand.

“Pleasure.” She says, taking it.

“Bobby,” Deacon says, taking her hand. “Nice to meet you.”

“You as well,” Jenny offers mildly, ignoring the piece of paper he’s slipped into her hand. “You gentlemen think you can retrieve our shipment? It’s rough territory out that way.”

“I’d be more concerned with how your men let it slip in the first place,” Don says.

“Believe me,” she says, never breaking eye contact. “We’re concerned. We’ve built a reliable network; some of the men have been under our employ for ten years. “

“Allegiances shift.”

Deacon tightens his jaw.

“Yes, well,” Jack intervenes. “I’m sure Edward will address any personnel problems that arise.”

Jenny nods and excuses herself, retreating back to the lab. Her notes are still sprawled out across a table; adding one more is hardly conspicuous.

“Bobby’s” handwriting is cramped, but legible. _Don’t know what your people are keeping out at Parsons, but you don’t want him near it_.

It’s surprisingly direct. She’s come to accept, and even expect, a certain degree of cloak and dagger in his missives. The odd update she receives through Stockton is always, at the very least, a bit cryptic. Coming straight out with anything is dangerous; that he’s willing to take the risk speaks volumes.

Grabbing the lighter from Jack’s desk, she walks over to the sink and sets the paper alight. She doesn’t need any unnecessary questions.

\---

She stops Edward in the hall later that day. “You got a minute?”  
  
“What’s up, J?”  
  
“Look,” she starts. “I know personnel is your call, and ordinarily, I think your judgments are unimpeachable, but I don’t have a good feeling about this Don character.”

“He handled Jack alright.”

“I know, and sometimes, that’s a worry in and of itself.”

“I’m listening.”

“I think he can do the job. That’s not my worry. But if … if our worst fears come to pass, if someone _else_ is somehow involved in this … what’s to keep him from a taking a better offer?”  
  
“What? More caps?”  
  
She shrugs. “I don’t know. And that’s what worries me. We don’t have a damn thing pointing to an inside job. There’s not a soul working Parsons who knows the full extent of what, or who, they’re guarding to leverage it. But having a courier carrying the serum get hit? ”

“Raiders can hit anyone, J. It doesn’t mean anything. I don’t think we’re looking at a turncoat risk.”

She shakes her head. “I know you’re right. But … be careful with him. Watch your ass.”

\---

Jack spends the next two days puttering in his lab, looking into something about the zeta gun. Edward works to manage his ever-slipping hold on Wilhelmina. Jenny starts off another translation.

Everyone is tense, all busying themselves with whatever they can find. Edward excuses himself to check on the state of things at Parsons. The Jack-Wilhelmina shouting starts early this time, and continues at periodic intervals. They’re in the midst of a match when Don and Deacon finally return.

Jenny’s outside when they get back, staring up at the stars. She’d slipped out just as Emogene returned, keen to avoid reunion drama. Don and Deacon follow soon after; even with the sunglasses, she can spot the sourness in Deacon’s mood.

“Are you coming?” Don asks when they reach the door. His tone is clipped, irritated.

“In a minute,” Deacon says, matching his ire. Once he’s sure his traveling companion’s won’t immediately be coming back out, he turns his attention to Jenny. “Can I have a word with you? Alone?”

She raises her eyebrows, but heads back towards the generator shed. 

“How well do you know Emogene?” He asks once they’re inside.

“Emogene Cabot? Pretty well at this point.”

“She ever tell you about this ‘serum’ of hers? Makes it sound like a fountain of youth, but it’s gotta be bullshit, right?”

Jenny’s eyes bug. “Fucking hell, Em,” She groans, burying her face in her hands. “Look,” she says, turning her attention back to Deacon. “I’m gonna tell you a story, and you’re not gonna believe me. Hell, I wouldn’t believe me. So, I’m going to get the proof beforehand. You got a minute?”

Deacon’s eyebrows are almost in his hairline. “I got time.”

Making her way up to her room by the back stairs, Jenny can feel the knot forming in her stomach. It’s all consuming, enough to drown out the chaos she can make out down below. Showing him the box means showing him _everything_. It means telling him the story, telling him about Nick. She’s had enough practice sobbing in front of strangers to have lost the shame attached to it, but that doesn’t mean she’s looking forward to this.

“You ever read the old _Boston Bugles_ hanging around?” She asks Deacon as she begins to unpack the box.

“Few of’em, yeah.”

She nods once. “So, you’ve read the story about the cop the mobster had gunned down.”

“Yeah. Guy by the name of Nick Valentine.”

She nods again. “How much else you remember?”

Deacon shrugs. “Something about the mob boss being let go, the fiancée going mad with grief …” He trails off.

She hands him a pristine copy of the paper. “Here, you’re gonna want to refresh your memory on the details.”

“How’d you find one so nice?” He asks, scanning it over.

She doesn’t answer.

He looks up at her when he finishes. “Yeah, I’ve definitely seen this story before.”

“Alright,” she pauses. “Now comes the part where you stop believing me. I’m the fiancée.”

Deacon’s silent for a moment. “Is this some kind of family joke I’m not in on? You can’t be her. You’d be …”  
  
Jenny shakes her head. “ 242 years old, I know. I’ll prove it.”

She hands him her license, then her press badge from the paper in Chicago, then her birth certificate. She moves on from there, pulling out her marriage license, the photo they’d had taken the night Nick proposed, the invitation proof. Then the clippings. There she is, shell shocked at the funeral. There’s her article, the one that had set her on the path to Cabot House. There she is, being led from their apartment in handcuffs. Accompanied by Edward on the way out of the Mass State Correctional Institute. All in pristine condition. 

He’s silent while he reads, shifting from document to document as if to confirm the details. Jenny picks at her hands, somewhere between crying and vomiting, and ferociously determined not to do either.

His voice is soft when he speaks. “Christ, you really are her, aren’t you?”

She nods. “Yeah,” she says, trying to speak around the lump that’s sprouted in her throat. “Would’ve told you sooner, but …”

“No real easy way to bring it up,” he finishes.

“Yeah,” she says. “I met you on the anniversary of Nick’s murder. Two hundred goddamn years to the day.” She sniffles. “The gut wound, the shape you were in … you could have been the worst raider in the ‘Wealth, and I wouldn’t have left you out there. Not that night.”

“I always wondered why you took that kind of a risk.”

She shrugs, looking away to blink back the tears she can feel sprouting. “I figured … I figured even if you had no chance in hell of making it, at least you wouldn’t be alone when the end hit.” She lets out a short, mirthless laugh. “Don’t know what I would have done if that had happened.”

“How’d you end up on Jack’s radar to begin with?”  
  
“Edward,” she sighs, brushing away a tear. “He and I grew up together. I was the mouthy younger sister he never had. He was my protector. There’s nine years between us; he used to walk me to school.” She finds the seam of her sweater pocket, and begins rubbing it between her fingers. “He and Jack have been together … Jesus. A long time. So, when he read what had happened, he got Jack, who at the time, was using his medical degree as the head psychiatrist at Parsons, to write an appeal to the judge. Said I was too grief-stricken to fully understand the consequences of what I had done, that it was, in effect, a temporary insanity.”

“I’m guessing that’s not quite the truth.”

Jenny offers him her best attempt at a smirk. “I knew damn well what I was doing. I couldn’t keep the courts from letting Winter walk, but I could sure as hell stir up some outrage about them doing it.”

“So, you wrote the article.”  
  
“And got myself arrested, yeah. Anyway, Jack argued that I was in need of intensive care, that I should be seen privately, and that I should be remanded to his custody until it was decided that I _was_ fit.”

“But he had no intention of doing that.”

“Exactly. “ She pauses. “Edward made the argument that, after life as a reporter, digging up pieces, putting them together, that I might be a useful asset as a research assistant. Jack didn’t take much convincing.” She shrugs. “He’d do just about anything for Edward, but then again, that’s mutual there.”

“So, you found out about the family secret, this _serum_.”

She shakes her head. “Not right away.” Jenny bites her lip. She knows she has to get through the next bit quickly, if she wants any hope of maintaining some of her waning composure. “When Nick was killed, I was pregnant. Not enough to show, but far enough. About a week before the bombs fell, I had one hell of a miscarriage. “ She takes a deep breath, and shuts her eyes. “Edward found me doubled over downstairs in the greenhouse, blood soaking through my clothes. He rushed me to Mass General. I’d only been home a few days when everything went to shit.”

“The next few days were a blur. It was like losing Nick all over again, except only now, it was worse. The one piece I was supposed to have left of him was gone. Hell, the whole world was gone. “ She pauses. “There was a man who came to the house, big, tough fella. I was sure we were gonna die. Jack and Edward had gone to Parsons; it was just me, Wilhelmina, and Em.” She laughs. “Fucking Emogene. She’s a goddamn terror when she wants to be. “ Jenny shrugs. “Anyway, Emogene … dealt with him. And we survived.”

“Things were touch and go the first few weeks. I found out had my folks had survived, by some miracle. They’d moved somewhere in northeastern Pennsylvania for retirement. They’d gotten fallout from the bombs dropped on New York, but nothing direct. That was some of the only good news. Edward got sick pretty quickly after that. Jack wouldn’t leave his side. He came back … different, but at least he came back. _That_ was when I learned about the serum.”

“See, Jack realized that it was the serum protecting him, and Em, and Wilhelmina. They knew that it stopped the aging process, but they didn’t realize the other piece. It’s why Edward got sick, and Jack didn’t, even though they were both out there. He radioed Em, and told her to stick me with a dose. I’ve been on it since.” She realizes she’s shaking. “I guess … in the long run, I’m luckier than most. My folks are still around --- they ghoulified not too long after Edward. I have a beautiful safe place to live. I have food and clean water. I’ve seen … a lot of life. More than most anyone else ever will.”

“But it doesn’t fix it,” Deacon adds, gently. “I know. Losing someone like that … it’s like losing a limb. You compensate, but it doesn’t fix it.”

She nods.

“How long were you two together?”

“A little shy of ten years. Met him breaking my first big story. I got sloppy with my cover. He had my back. My codename —Nightingale—it was our song.”

Deacon swallows hard. “Barbara and I had five. We didn’t know it, but she was a synth. Local gang found out. It got bloody. “

It takes Jenny a moment to process the implication. “Jesus, Deacon. I’m so sorry.”

“I took payment in kind. A few weeks later, a Railroad agent found me. Figured I’d be sympathetic.”

“And here you are,” she says.

Deacon nods. “Here I am.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the whole truth. Sooner, I mean. I just … everyone’s got baggage. You didn’t need to be roped in on mine.”

“No offense taken. Hell, I’m not in a place to judge,” He offers. “I’ve just got one more question.”

“Shoot.”

“What’s got everyone quaking in their boots about Parsons?”

“Lorenzo.”

“Who?” Deacon asks.

“Jack and Emogene’s father. Back in the 1890s, he went on expedition. Discovered … well, discovered a lot of things, but an artifact among them. He came back … changed. Inhuman strength. Powers that can only be described as telekinetic. Homicidal lunacy. And,” she shrugs. “A dead stop on the aging process.”

“I don’t have the full story, but Jack had taken a blood sample from his father, trying to understand what had happened. He noticed there was something funny with the cell structure. It was human, but it wasn’t. It regenerated too quickly. So, he extracted the DNA, studied it, and used it to create what we all use. He tested it on a lab rat. Kept the little bugger alive right up until the bombs hit.”

“I don’t know how Jack synthesizes it. I don’t think I want to. All I know is this: it’s eternal youth, as long as you’re on it. It effectively grants you a certain level of natural resistance to radiation. And,” she pauses. “It’s pretty good at stabilizing people who couldn’t otherwise survive their injuries.”

She waits a beat.

Deacon doesn’t miss the implication. “So, that first night….”

“Yeah,” she nods. “Bullet went clean through you. Tore open your gut and let a lot out. If the blood loss didn’t kill you, the infections would have.”

“How’d you know it wouldn’t hook me?”

“It’s not addictive. Not physically anyway. There’s no withdrawal, no itch when it’s wearing off. It’s just … it’s very easy to get used to being alive. I knew a single shot would last long enough to get you through the trauma and the healing, but not long enough for you to notice anything. And…” she trails off. “I was very set on not having you die.”

“Look, “ she says, after a moment. “I know I should have asked. You didn’t ask to be dragged into this. And I know I haven’t been on the level with you, not totally in any case, the whole time you’ve known me, but ---“

“Everyone lies.” He cuts in. “You’re a good friend. Come on,” he says. “We should head back in before they talk.”

Jenny hoists the box onto her hip. “Mmmm,” she intones, sniffling. “Gossip: just what the house needs.”

“Mr. Deegan would have a canary.”

She lets out a short laugh. “Actually, Edward would be ---“

She opens the door to the sounds of more shouting, and Edward’s voice made tinny by the HAM radio.

She sets the box down on the kitchen table, and makes her way to the front room. “The hell is going on?”

“Raiders are attacking Parsons,” jack says, turning to his her. His face is drawn. “Edward’s there now, trying to shore things up, but it isn’t looking good.”

“And our people?”  
  
Jack’s silence tells her all she needs to know.

“I can pay you both handsomely, if you can spare the time to come along,” he says, turning his attention to Don. “I’ll be frank: we’re in dire need of help.”

“If you’ve got the caps, we’ve got the time.”

Deacon’s jaw tightens, and his gun hand clenches briefly into a fist before loosening again. “Raiders are scum,” he offers. “”It’s no problem to lend a hand.”

“Good, good,” Jack answers, absently. “We’ll leave immediately. We have a spare cache of supplies if you’re in need of anything.”  
  
“We’re good, thanks,” Deacon says, cutting Don off. “Let’s just get on the road.”

 --


	2. Two

Jenny hates suspense.

She has always been a believer in start from the end, in peaking at the last page. _Life has enough uncertainty; why inflict anymore on yourself?_ She reasons.

Radio silence does not sit well with her.

It has been a long day, and she can feel the exhaustion in her bones. She wants nothing more than to go to sleep. She takes a hot shower, and brews a cup of tea. She lies in bed for two hours,

Finally, she gives up. She gets out of bed, pulls on a sweater, and heads for the garden. She flips on the other HAM unit, and sets about cataloging the seeds they’ll need for the next round of plantings. It doesn’t make her feel any better, but it’s more productive than pacing the halls, or picking at her hands.

She thinks about the origin of her small sanctuary, of Nick and her baby, of the world that was. She thinks of Jack and Edward, who had taken such a risk on her; of Emogene, and the alarming capability she hides behind the flighty veneer; of Deacon, and his casual, easily given forgiveness.

For all that she has lost, she still has so much.

It is so much that she might still lose.

The radio crackles to life and she jumps, scattering seeds.

“Jenny? Emogene? Anybody there?”

Edward’s voice sounds terrible, thin and labored.

“Edward!” She says, picking up the microphone. “What the hell happened? Are you alright?

“Jenny,” Edward groans. “Jack’s dead.”

Her mouth goes dry and she feels a chill creep up her spine. “What---“  
  
“He’s dead. And Lorenzo’s out --- probably headed your way.”

She sinks to the floor. “Are … are you sure?”

“Yeah,” he says softly. “Listen, you gotta get out of there. Take Emogene and Wilhelmina with you.”

She nods, though she knows he can’t see. “Roger that.” She pauses. “What do I do if I can’t get them to leave?”  
  
“Between you and Emogene you should be able to get Wilhelmina out. Drug her, if you have to.”

“Nevermind Wilhelmina. I don’t know that Emogene will leave.”

“She’s seen what Lorenzo can do.”

“And she disappears for weeks at a time without telling us where she’s gone. Personal safety hasn’t been a concern for Em the whole time I’ve known her.”  
  
“There’s a difference between having no judgment and having a death wish.”

“Emogene thrives on danger. I’ve never seen her look more alive than the time she re-took the house from that Anders guy.”

“She’ll---“  
  
“Edward, when has Emogene ever done what she was told?”  
  
He sighs. “Go get them.”

She wakes Emogene, then sends her in after Wilhelmina. It’s not that Jenny isn’t capable of rousing the Cabot matriarch herself, so much as the matriarch’s poor reaction to being roused by “the help” doesn’t make the task an especially pleasant one.

Once everyone’s gathered around the sitting room unit, Jenny radios Edward. “Alright, everyone’s here.”

“Jack’s dead,” Edward begins, and the catch in his voice in unmistakable. “And Lorenzo is headed your way, which means you all have to get out. You probably don’t have too long --- maybe two hours, if you’re lucky. Take what you need and head for Goodneighbor. I’ll meet you all there soon.”

“I’m not leaving,” Emogene cuts him off. “Not a chance.”

“Emogene---“  
  
“If he’s out and he killed Jack ---“  
  
“Lorenzo didn’t kill Jack.”

“Wait, what?”

“Lorenzo didn’t kill Jack.” There’s that catch again. Jenny’s fairly certain that ghouls can’t cry, but Edward may yet prove her wrong. “The new guy did.”

“The one you sent after dear Emogene?” Wilhelmina asks.

“Yeah, Mrs. Cabot. My apologies. Didn’t realize what he was at the time. “ There’s a pause. “Don’t know what Lorenzo offered him, but I’ve got a few guesses.”

“What about the other guy? Bobby?” Jenny asks.

“I only came in on the end of it, but they had some kind of confrontation. Bobby wasn’t happy with Don. Tried talking him out of it. Lorenzo knocked him out cold on his way out.”

“And that’s why I’m not leaving,” Emogene says. “As long as Father’s out, he’s a risk. Someone’s got to put him back in the box. If Jack’s … gone, then it’s you and me, Edward.”

“Negative, Emogene. I was hired to protect you all. I’ll … I’ll find away.”

The blonde turns to Jenny. “Take mother and go.”

“I’m not going anywhere!” Wilhelmina protests. “Your father will come home, and come to his senses.”

“Mother---“  
  
“Emogene Louise Cabot,” Wilhelmina begins, pulling herself up to her full height. “I will not be told what to do in my own house by my own daughter.”

Emogene lets out a long, exasperated sigh. “Fine.” She picks up the microphone. “Mother and I aren’t leaving, Edward.”

“Em---“

“The house is well stocked. We’ve subdued him once. We can do it again.”

“Em---“ 

“I’ll see you soon, Edward,” she says, before unplugging the radio, and turning her attention to Jenny. “You heard the man: you don’t have a lot of time.”

“I’m not leaving!” Jenny exclaims. “I can’t just leave you to two to … to …”

“Die?” Emogene offers, voice calm. “Clear eyes and brave hearts can’t fail, Lands. I just have to get Father back in the box. Besides,“ she adds. “I haven’t had this kind of excitement in _decades_. “

Jenny crosses her arms. “ I—“

“I’ve got friends at the Rexford,” Emogene continues, heading towards the stairs. “They’ll put you up.”

“Where are you going?” Jenny calls after her.  
  
“To pack your things.”  
  
“I’m not leaving!”  
  
Emogene stops. “What’s Edward’s phrase? Knock her out and drag her by the ankles?”

Jenny’s silent.  
  
“Don’t be dramatic. Jennifer. It’ll all be fine.”

She refuses to move, refuses to _be_ moved, until Emogene returns with a suitcase in hand.  
  
“Should get you through the next few days,” she says. “Clothes, ammunition, books, the works. I’ll get Argus to escort you.”

“Emogene, really. I’d feel better staying.”

“If this goes sideways,” she drawls. ”There’s no point in all of us getting caught up in it.”

Emogene presses the suitcase into her hand and steps outside. She reappears back in the sitting room with a curt “Come along, then” and Jenny feels every second of the more than 200 years that separate them.

Wilhelmina is, of course, no help. “Musn’t upset Mr. Cabot, Jennifer,” she says. “Listen to Emogene.”

Outside, she turns to Emogene. “What the hell are you gonna tell Edward?”

“The truth: I sent you off.”

“I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“It’s all one big game, in any case. See you in a few days,” she says, opening the door back into the house. “Have some fun for me.”

Jenny stands in the street for a moment, staring after her. Argus rolls up behind, mechanical voice instructing her to move along. She tightens her grip on the case, wishing she had some means of subverting Emogene’s instructions. Argus repeats his instructions, impervious to everything going on around him.

He rolls closer.

Jenny shifts her suitcase to her left hand, and draws her gun with her right. She takes one look back at the house, and sets off down the road.

There’s not much to be said of her room at the Rexford, save for the fact that its door locks. She wedges her suitcase under the bed, and drifts down to the hotel bar. It’s dingy, just like the rest of Goodneighbor, but it’s still a step up from being out on the streets.

She’s on her third beer when a body sidles up alongside her. “Nice to see you’re alive,” he says, quietly.

Deacon looks awful. One of the lenses in his sunglasses is smashed, and though she can’t be certain, Jenny is fairly confident he’s sporting a black eye .

“Edward got us on the radio. Told us what happened.”

“Yeah,” Deacon grinds out. “I get why you kept the joker in the box now.”

“Where’s Don?”

“In hell, I hope.”

“What happened? I mean, I got the overall picture from Edward, but not a lot of detail.”

Deacon shakes his head. “He said something about considering all offers and just … opened the fucking door. I didn’t hear what he said, but out walked Lorenzo. I got off a couple shots, and then it all went black. Came to and Jack was dead.”

“Was it … did he suffer?”

“I don’t think the last few minutes of his life were sunshine and roses.”

“I meant physically.”

“Don’t think so. Looked like a clean headshot. ” He pauses. “I don’t think it was Lorenzo who got to him.”

Jenny shudders. “Small comforts, I guess…”

“You holding up okay?”

“I … don’t know yet. It hasn’t hit.” She pauses, drawing in a shaky breath. “I’m kind of numb; it’s the shock of it all. You get used to things. You take them for granted. You assume that the status quo will hold and that the bad things won’t, hell, can’t come to pass. When they do, it’s like … it’s like things stop making sense. I went to bed last night in the closest thing I’ve had to a home since Nick’s death. Tonight, I’m crashing in a rundown hotel that didn’t even have a great reputation before the war.”

“How’d Wilhelmina take it?”

Jenny’s face darkens. “I don’t know.”

Deacon’s eyebrows rise. “She doesn’t seem like a hard lady to read.”

Jenny downs what’s left of her beer, then orders another. “It was a little hard to do with Emogene throwing my ass out.”

“She threw you out? What happened?”

She shakes her head. “Maybe the term’s a little strong.” She takes a sip from her beer. “Edward radioed, said Jack was dead, Lorenzo was coming. Told us all to get out before the shit hit the fan.”

“With you so far.”

“Well, with Jack dead, Emogene argued it was _her_ responsibility to get Lorenzo back under control, to get him back in Parsons before he could cause any more trouble. Wilhelmina was sure he’d walk through the door, and remember who he really was.”

“Seems optimistic.”

“She resented Jack for not at least attempting to maintain him in the house. It’s not so much optimism as spite. ” Jenny shakes her head. “I tried to tell Emogene that, if she was staying, I was staying, but she wouldn’t have it. She packed my suitcase, escorted me out of the house, and then hotwired Argus to walk me here, like some post-apocalyptic school girl.”

“Argus? “

“Sorry, the sentry bot.”

“You named the sentry bot?”

“Argus Panoptes. All-seeing. It seemed appropriate.”

Deacon stares at her.

“I may have gotten a bit too far into the good bourbon,” she concedes.  
  
“In any case, Emogene threw me out. Now, I ‘m here. I have no idea what happened at the house. I have no idea if Lorenzo’s there. I have no idea if Emogene can stop him. I don’t know what’ll happen if she can’t. All I know is that Jack is dead, and Lorenzo’s out. As far as worst case scenarios go, that’s up there.”

“So, what’s your plan?”

“Could ask you the same. I’m betting that you’re gonna have to explain why you’ve cut a potential out of the fold.”

“Glory can deal with him. Or not,” Deacon adds, bitterly. “I brought him in. I’m the one who fucked up. Now, I just have to hope he doesn’t turn tail.”

“There are more permanent solutions.”

“Did you just suggest …“

Jenny takes another draw off of her beer. “I believe in seeing justice done. From everything you just told me, this man murdered my friend.“

“It still won’t bring’im back.

“If he murdered Jack, who was paying him a good bit of money, on the grounds of some unholy alliance, it says he’ll turn around and do the same to anyone else. So, preventative measures. Risk management. Threat neutralization. ” She takes another sip. “I can think of a hundred fancy terms for it.”

“At the end of the day, it tallies up the same.”

“Revenge is petty,” Jenny offers. “Revenge is for slights. Someone steals your byline? Scoops your lead? Steals your half and half out of the break room fridge? That’s what revenge is for.”

“You’re drunk.”

She nods. “Yeah, but the point stands. Jack, for all his many eccentricities, was a good man, and a good friend. He tried to treat people right. Give them a square deal. And just … ” She scrubs at her eyes. “If he was willing to kill Jack, there’s not much he holds sacred.”

“He’s got a son,” Deacon offers, quietly. “And a dead husband. Institute did him in and took the kid.”

“Institute grabbed Stockton’s little girl. She was probably terrified and she probably had a horrible death. Do you know how many people Stockton’s killed? None.”

“Jenny---“  
  
“The man I loved, the man who made me feel like, no matter what happened with the rest of the world, we’d be alright, as long as we were together, was gunned down in broad daylight in the middle of the street on orders from a crime lord who the government let walk away clean. And then! And then, I lost my baby. Do you know how many people I’ve killed?”

“Jenny---“

“You. _You_. You lost your wife. Sure, you put an end to the bastards who did it, but how many people have _you_ killed?”  
  
“You don’t want to know.”

“Raiders and murderers don’t count.”

“You still don’t want to know.”

Jenny shakes her head, beginning to cry. “Someone has to stop him.”

“He keeps up like this, someone will.”

“No,” she gasps. “Before he hurts somebody else. Because he will.”

“Finally hit, huh?” Deacon asks.

Jenny nods, pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes. “I forgot how bad it was. New loss, I mean.”

“You think you’re prepared for it, and you never are.”

“I think I left Emogene to die,” she confesses. “And what’s worse, I think it’s what she wanted. She never would have done it herself, but … all those times running off. Never telling us where she was It all points to one thing.” Jenny shakes her head. “Only time I ever saw Emogene really … thrive was the first few weeks after the bombs. Life turned topsy and she just … she embraced it. But it got old, like everything else.”

“And Wilhemina?”

“I’m not Edward. She’d never overrule Emogene.”

“You can’t save everybody.”

“Did I really try?”

“Come on,” Deacon counters. “We’re not going down that path. Let’s get you to bed.”

“But did I?”  
  
“Jenny,” he sighs, pushing his sunglasses back up the bridge of his nose. “I told you: You can’t save everyone.” 

\---

She wakes up the next morning with the room spinning. Someone is knocking at the door. “J, are you in there?”

 _Edward_.

She pushes herself up, and drags herself to the door. Her fingers are clumsy on the lock, and her stomach rolls.  
  
Edward’s face is drawn when he opens the door.

“Emogene and Wilhelmina are dead.”

She means to say something. She means to have a coherent thought spring forth from her mouth. She is practiced. She has known loss, has lived with loss, for two centuries. She means to have some composure.

Instead, she gestures for Edward to give her a minute, walks into the bathroom, and promptly throws up. She takes a swig of water from the glass Deacon had left her with the night before, and spits, then rinses it all away.

When she turns around, Edward is staring at her.

“I figured,” she says, by way of reply. “Taking it Lorenzo’s in control of Cabot House, then.”

“There was an awful lot of blood.”

“Aren’t you gonna ask me why I wasn’t there? Your whole ‘knock her out and drag her by the heel’ speech?”

Edward shakes his head, sinking down on the sorry excuse for a mattress. “Emogene kicked you out, then radioed me. She made her choice. No one was going to stop her.”

Jenny crosses the room, sitting down beside him. “I can’t believe they’re gone. I can’t believe he’s _out_.”

Edward just stares straight ahead.

“It all happened so quick,” she presses on. “Just … what happened?”

Edward still doesn’t say anything.

“I saw Bobby last night,” she tries. “He was the one who made sure I got to bed with the door locked.”

“I fucked up,” Edward finally offers. “It was my call, and I fucked up.”

Jenny shakes her head. “You couldn’t have seen this.”

“You did.”

“No. I had a bad feeling. No one saw this.”

“I couldn’t stop him.”

“Lorenzo’s not human. None of us ---“

“Not Lorenzo. Our---” Edward huffs. “Don. I couldn’t stop him.“

Jenny’s quiet for a moment. “What’d Lorenzo offer him?”

“The serum.”

“Of course,” she mutters.

“I have to go back. I have to go dig the grave.”

“Unless you’re planning on a concrete encasement, I’m not sure burying either of them will make a difference.”

“Not them.” Jenny’s always heard that ghouls can’t cry, but she’s certain Edward’s about to prove the assertion wrong. “Jack.”

“I’ll go with you,” she offers, voice beginning to crack. 

“I …I buried the others. What was left of them.” Edward squeezes his eyes shut. ”On the green, in front of the house.”

“Wilhelmina would be so offended,” Jenny jokes, as tears begin to roll down her face. “’How common!’” She says, mimicking the deceased matriarch’s voice.

Edward buries his face in his hands, knocking his cap off in the process. “How many times do we have to do this?’ He asks. “What’s left?”

“Well, we can’t go home,” she says. “To the house, I mean. I guess in the broader sense, too. So … not much, I guess.”

“I told him you were my sister,” Edward says, after a minute.

“Lorenzo?”  
  
He nods. “Didn’t want you out on the street.”

“I can’t live there, either.”

“I know. “

They sit in silence.

“There’s a house,” he says, finally. “Not too far away. Quiet neighborhood. Still intact. Could get a generator built, and a purifier.”

“Where are you gonna get the supplies? “ She sniffles. “The salvage pickings aren’t as good as they used to be.”

“Can scrap some of it … a lot of it … from Parsons.” He pauses. “How much serum do you have?”  
  
Jenny shrugs. “After last night … I haven’t looked. I’m still set for another month, regardless.”

“He’s agreed to provide me with it for you, in lieu of payment, but ---“  
  
“Edward!”  
  
“Lemme finish, J. You gotta meet with him.”

“You can’t _not_ get paid! You’ve got no leverage!”

“Jennifer Lands,” he growls. “You are in no position to tell me what I can’t do.”

“Look, I’ve been, well, not exactly where you are but close enough and ---“

“I’m not watching you die, too.”

“What are you gonna do when he turns on you? It’s not gonna matter anyway!”

“It matters to _me_ , Jenny.”

“And you not being at the whim of a _lunatic_ matters to me!” Her voice cracks, and a new wave of tears starts. _Goddamnit_.

Edward sighs. “If it gets bad, I’ll leave.”

“You’re just snowing me.”

“I’m not. He asks me to do something I’m not comfortable with, we’re done. I walk away.”

“I’m holding you to that.”

Edward side eyes her and the meaning is immediately clear: _Good luck with that one, kid_.

“What’s the plan?” She finally asks. “Parsons, then the house ---“

“Flip that. House, then Parsons.”

“…Are you sure?”

“You really want to cross Lorenzo?”

“He sent you?”  
  
Edward nods.

“Fuck.”

She doesn’t remember the walk back to Cabot House. The forty minutes pass in a haze of grief and fear. Her stomach is in knots, and for the first time, she wonders if maybe there is god, if there is a chance he’s merciful, and if he’ll just end them both now. She’d like it to be something quick, something painless.  
  
Something before Edward can open the door.

Fleetingly, she wonders if she might be able to knock him out and avoid this whole mess. Her suitcase is heavy and she could get a good swing. It might be enough force to do the trick.

 _Don’t kid yourself. You’d never be able to look your reflection in the eye again_.

The house is quiet. Blood is still smeared across the carpet and the baseboard. The sofa hasn’t been righted. The radio is smashed to pieces.

Lorenzo Cabot stands at the stop of the stairs.

Jenny feels her mouth run dry. She’s momentarily concerned about vomiting on the carpet, but reasons she’s already emptied her stomach. She can feel her knees start to tremble.

“My sister, Mr. Cabot.”

He’s down the stairs before Jenny can blink and entirely too close a moment after that. She’s certain he can hear the way her heart thuds against her ribs, can hear the inner voice screaming at her to run.

He eyes her over, as if he can see into her, gain some sort of insight from her disheveled hair and wrinkled dress. He reaches out and runs a finger down her jawline. “Not much a family resemblance,” he finally offers. “But then, again, Jack and Emogene never looked much alike either. Tell me,” he begins. “Why don’t you look like him?”

“Beg … beg your pardon, Mr. Cabot?”  
  
“You’re not a ghoul, Ms. Deegan. Yet, he claims you as his sister,” Lorenzo drawls. “How did that come to pass?”

“After … after the bombs, I was here. Jack and Edward were … were at Parsons. Edward had gotten sick. Jack radioed Emogene and she stuck me with a vial. Then, every six weeks, I took another injection.”

“Generous, weren’t they, Edward?” Lorenzo grins. “So generous with what was never theirs.”

“Mrs. Cabot felt keeping the current household staff was preferable to finding replacements,” Edward offers.

“Mmm, Wilhelmina was always so _particular_ about the staff. Tell me, Ms. Deagan, did you get along well with my wife?”

“I performed my duties completely and promptly,” Jenny responds, unsure of how to answer.  
  
“And just what were those duties?”

She is certain she is about to be killed. “Officially, I managed the household’s supply of dry goods, and tended to the garden.”

“And unofficially?”  
  
“I did whatever was asked of me, Mr. Cabot.”

He nods, seeming satisfied by the answer. “Why?”

“It seemed … seemed ungrateful not to. I’d been spared a death in the wastes.”

“Mmm, a pardon that was not theirs to give.”

She stands silently, trying to keep from shaking.  
  
“Still, there is something to be said for fealty. Yes, you’ll do. Edward,” Lorenzo begins. “Take her things back to her room. She may remain here while you make other arrangements.”

“Thank you, Mr. Cabot,” Edward responds, picking up her suitcase.  
  
“Thank you,” she says, weakly.

The shower is blissfully warm. He shampoo smells good, and her bathrobe is soft. She sits on the edge of her bed and wonders how long she has left. She wonders how long Emogene lasted against him.

She wonders if Emogene was scared.

Someone knocks at her door, and she almost falls over herself to open it. She stands ready to apologize for her appearance, her demeanor, her...

Edward looks exhausted. He holds plans in one hand; the other, still poised to knock.

“Sorry,” she offers. “Thought you were, well.”

“Can I come in?”  
  
She nods, standing aside as she opens the door. “Things aren’t quite put back together,” she offers.

“You did good,” he says, quietly.

She shakes her head. “I thought I was gonna die.”

“That was his goal.”

She shudders. “Edward, I can’t---“ 

“I know. You can’t stay here. I’m working on it.”

He unfolds a map of the city across her bed. “Here it is. I heard about it from one of Bunker’s traders. I haven’t been over yet to check the plumbing or scope out the electrical. I need you with me for that.”

She nods. She can do this. They can do this. “Yeah, tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow. ”

Jenny shivers. “How long do you think it’ll be til I’m in?”

“If it’s not a shithole, a month.”

She feels the color drain from her face.

That night, she wishes for a lock on the door. She has never felt unsafe in the house, not since the early days after the bombs, at least. She has never felt the need to hide, to shield herself. She keeps Nick’s revolver loaded and accessible, for all the good it will do her if Lorenzo changes his mind.

In the morning, she wakes early and heads for the kitchen. Lorenzo is already seated at the table, pouring over a book.

“Good morning, Mr. Cabot,” she says. “I hope I haven’t kept you waiting.”

He looks up. “Tea, please.”

Her hands shake on the oven controls, but she manages to get the kettle situated. She pours the tea without incident, and sets it in front of him, along with the sugar bowl.  
  
“No creamer?” He drawls.  
  
“No sir, my apologies. The only creamer would be Brahmin-based and it’s … it’s too irradiated.”

“Mm,” he intones, mildly, continuing to read. “Very well, Ms. Deagan. Your brother has need of you, I believe.”

She thanks him and excuses herself, fighting the urge to run down the hall.

Edward’s door is open, but he is sitting on the edge of the bed, head in his hands again. Jenny knocks, gently, not wanting to intrude.

“Edward?”

He snaps to attention. “Mm? Sorry, J. Long night.”

“Lor --- Mr. Cabot said you needed me.”

“I’m headed up to Parsons. You sure you want to come along?”

She nods. “He was my friend. And besides, I wouldn’t leave you alone. Not on a job like this.”

He stands. “Go get changed. I’ll meet you at the front door in ten minutes.”

The walk to Parsons is long, and the silence between them so heavy that Jenny’s almost grateful for the bloodbugs, mole rats, and raiders who cross their path. They leave a trail of corpses behind them and, while it’s hardly unusual, Jenny can’t help but feel it’s strangely appropriate. They can lose; they can impart loss. It’s a balance.

Edward disappears briefly into a shed off to the side of the main complex, and emerges with two shovels. He passes one to Jenny, then continues up a small hill.

“Here,” he says.

The soil is tough and rocky, and the job is hard. Jenny’s forgotten how tiring manual labor is, and the reminder is unwelcome. Still, she owes him this, owes them both this simple act.

“You remember any of what we’re supposed to say?” Edward asks, as they sit for a break.

Jenny’s feet are dangling into the hole. “You were always the better Catholic.”

Edward nudges his hat with the back of his hand. “I got ‘The Lord is my shepard, I shall not fear,’ but nothin’ after that.”

“He’d probably rather you just talked as you,” she says. “I mean, it’s Jack. Religion was never a priority for him.”

“Couldn’t come up with it for Wilhelmina and Emogene, either,”

Jenny cracks a small, sad smile. “Think Emogene probably would’ve preferred it that way.”

It’s dark by the time they’re done, and a rad storm is beginning to roll in. Jenny hands Edward a sheet from her bag.

“Figured a coffin was past the realm of possibility. Hope this’ll do.”

He takes it.  
  
“You want me to go with you?”  
  
Edward shakes his head.

Jenny unholsters her gun, and settles down near the grave, waiting for trouble. She tilts her head back, and stares up at the few stars managing to peek through the thickening clouds. She is not religious, not by any means, but she believes in an afterlife. She imagines Nick and Jack and Emogene, and even Wilhelmina. She imagines Nick’s gruff voice, whispering conspiratorially about “the maintenance on that woman.” She hopes that they’re happy, wherever they are, that they’ve found the people they needed to. She hopes Nick is still with her, somehow, and that Jack is watching over Edward.

It feels silly. It feels trite. She is not a child who needs to be told a fairy tale.

And yet, it helps.

Jack had once mentioned to her that the elements that became the building blocks of human life had come from dying stars. It feels fitting to look up at them and remember.

She pulls herself to her feet to watch Edward mount the hill, carrying Jack’s body, wrapped the in the sheet.  
  
“You got anything that you need to say?” He asks her.

She shakes her head. “I’ve always been shitty at goodbyes. You?”

“Already said my peace.”  
  
She sighs. “Alright. Let’s do this.”

They lower Jack slowly into the ground, and begin covering him with the earth they’d dug out. Jenny’s never subscribed to the idea of funerals being a place of closure; if anything, they only highlight what you’ve lost.

She’s not sure she believes in healing, either. Not from a loss like this, at least. It’s not about closing the wounds, it’s about learning to live with them. It’s about finding an answer every time the voice in your head asks ‘why not join him?’ or ‘what now?’

They try to make the grave look inconspicuous. There’s not a lot they can do about the wildlife, but they can at least try to throw the scavvers off. When it’s finally smooth and even, when they’ve disguised it well enough, Edward kneels down, and touches a palm to the ground. He rises, and they head for the house.

\---

The next morning, she is in the kitchen before Lorenzo wakes, already working at breakfast. There is hot tea and sugar when he sits down, and she is promptly excused.  
  
Edward finds her shortly after, looking like he hasn’t slept. She fights the urge to ask him how he’s holding up; she already knows the answer, all too intimately. She figures if he wants to talk, he’ll talk; there’s no point in pressing the issue.

They walk to the house in silence, though she's come to accept that this will be the norm for now. Edward was never especially chatty to begin with, and this the natural evolution of mixing that with grief.

The house is small, and run down, but intact. She reminds herself to withhold judgment; that she's lucky that such a place even exists; that, even before the war, Cabot House was the exception, not the norm.

 _The apartment in Chicago was nothing special either_ , she reminds herself. _You and Nick were the ones who really made it something to be proud of. No reason you can’t do it again_.

They open the door to a corpse and a cat, who greets them with a chirp, and a brush up against Jenny’s legs. She instinctively bends down to offer a hand; her feline friend brushes up against it, beginning to purr.

Edward grabs the body, dragging it into the dumpster behind the building, while Jenny rolls up the bloodstained rug and follows him out. She thinks briefly of her gran, of what she’d say about living in a place where death had so recently been. She shakes her head; _the whole world’s a grave. It doesn’t matter now, anyway_.

The prior occupant hadn’t had much. A few cracked plates, some Fancy Lads, and what she suspects was, once upon a time, a mutfruit. They all find their way into the dumpster with their former owner.

Jenny’s stomach twists. She feels bad for the man, or what remains of him. He must have had a life, people who cared about him, pride in the little place he called home. His little cat follows her around, meowing, looking for any scrap of affection she might spare. She thinks of how easily it could have been Jack, if someone else had gotten to Parsons first. She debates crawling in after the man, looking for some scrap of who he was, whom she should notify.

She shakes her head. _That won’t do_.

Eventually, they venture down to the basement. Edward examines the pipes, looking for the first time since that radio call, to truly be in his element He has always responded to loss with problem solving. After the bombs fell, he busied himself at Parsons, not only out of duty to Jack and the family, but to keep his own mind off of what had transpired, what the world had become. It’s hard to grieve when you’re too tired to think.

“I can make it work,” he finally concludes. “Gotta switch out the pipes. Gotta get the generator built and hooked up. But I can make it work. We got room for the Abramolin generator, too.”

“Why---“

“Because, everything, everyone else, we build a few turrets, try to relocate Argus, and it’s fine. Him? There’s not a lot I can do for you if something happens.”  
  
“You mean if he finds any mention of me in Jack’s notes.”

Edward nods. “Don’t think it’ll happen. Doesn’t hurt to be safe.”

Jenny hugs herself against an imagined chill, reminding herself that she is not having a bad dream, that this is her reality. She’s survived on tenterhooks before, and she can do it again.

 _Not like there’s anything you can do if he comes for you_ , she thinks. _Best hope is to minimize the collateral._

She shivers, and tries not to think of the grim possibilities. “What’s the plan?” She asks.

“I’m sending you to Bunker Hill tomorrow,” he says, not taking his eyes off the piping. “I’ll give you a list. Hire one of the caravaners to bring it here.”

“And you?”  
  
“I’ll salvage what I can from Parsons, and meet you. “

“Can you bring me seeds?”  
  
“From Parsons?”  
  
“From the house.” Her face flushes. “I’d take them myself, but…”

Edward nods. “I can do my best. ”

The next day finds her at Bunker Hill, trying to wheedle better prices on what they need. Nothing’s changed, not really. Deb is still there, and Kessler, too. Carla still casts spurious glances at all the newcomers. Stockton’s standoffish, but she’s learned not to take it personally.

She’s almost done when he calls her over.

“Miss Jenny,’ he begins. “I heard the news about the warehouse being hit. Might you have any suggestions of an alternate location? I’m asking for our mutual friend.”

Jenny nods. “There’s one in progress. Not far from the last one. I’ll get back to you with the details.”

Stockton nods. “Much appreciated.”

She negotiates for a few extra hands, as well, people fresh off Cabot payroll whom she knows she can trust as guards. She has no intention of sleeping at the house if she doesn’t have to, even if it means going a night without a shower and drinking bottled water.

By the time Edward arrives, she’s already set up a small perimeter patrol and has begun sorting the deliveries in the basement, keeping them to a corner to give Edward the maximum amount of space, The basement is concrete, but furnished, eerily reminiscent of a bomb shelter.

“What makes you think it wasn’t?” Edward asks when she brings it up.  
  
Jenny shrugs. “Guess I can’t imagine how much it would have cost to build.”

“Used to be a nice area, J. Wasn’t like Southie.”

“Nick and I weren’t living in Southie, and we couldn’t have afforded this.”

“That’s the problem with only having your own money to rely on. Never got the impression Mr. Valentine came from wealth.”

 She snorts. “Fair enough.”

“You wanna start on things tonight?”

She blushes. “I felt bad asking.”

“Nah,” he shakes his head. “I’d feel better doin’ something, rather than nothing.”

“Yeah,” she takes a long exhale. “Me, too.”

“Nice call on the guards, by the way,” he offers, opening his toolbox.

“You’ve trained me well.”

They work through the first night with Edward changing out the pipes, and Jenny bundling up the remnants for scrap. They sleep through the next morning, and then Edward is at it again, disassembling the water purification system from Parsons, and rebuilding it in miniature. When he’s finally done, he hooks up a small generator and hands Jenny a test tube.  
  
“Go try it out. Test strips are in the tool box.”

She rummages briefly in the tool box, grabbing the container of test strips, then heads up the stairs. She turns on the faucet, and lets it run for a few minutes before filling the vial and inserting the test strip.

It is the first good news they’ve received, announced with a joyous shout. “We’re in business!”

“Good,” Edward says. Even from the first floor, she can hear the ragged edge to his voice. “That’s good, Jenny.”

They keep working, keep fixing. She drags out a rotting sofa and broken kitchen chairs. Edward starts work on the permanent generator.

“We have to go back,” he says, sometime before dinner.

“You can go back,” Jenny counters. “I can stay here. The water’s fine now. We’ve got a few good guns outside. I’ll be careful.”

“Come on J,” Edward begins. “The mattress has dried blood on it. We have to fix the floorboards upstairs. You can’t stay here.”

She pauses for a moment. “You think he’ll show up, don’t you?” She asks.

“That’s my worry. He’s paranoid enough as it is. We don’t need him making a house call.”

She sighs, and resigns herself to the inevitable. “Fine. Let’s go.”

\---

Cabot House used to feel like a fortress: impenetrable and impervious. Whatever the Wasteland threw at them, except for maybe the Institute, it had always felt like danger stopped at the front door.

She admits that, on the surface, none of that has changed. The house is as impregnable as it has always been, maybe even more so with the addition of the elder Cabot. After all, the walls still stand. The defenses still work, Lorenzo could, with little effort, rip any intruder apart.

But that’s just it: as long as Lorenzo is there, she’d rather take her chances on the outside. Cabot House is still a fortress but the comfort it once offered has been supplanted by a creeping fear. The greatest danger now lies within the house, rather than outside of it. It is a danger that they are unable to predict and unable to combat. Without Jack, they are at a loss, only able to placate the mad man or flee from him.

Jenny knows it is a time bomb. Some day, maybe not soon, but some day, they will lose control. Someone will say the wrong thing, do the wrong thing, and she and Edward will be on the receiving end of Lorenzo’s wrath. They too will end up splattered across the walls, blood staining the carpet. If she is lucky, it will be in her sleep.

If she is lucky, she will get out before it ever happens.

She misses Nick. He is the first thought that crosses her mind in the morning, and the last one to drift across at night. She misses his smile, his laugh, the feeling of his hand in hers. She misses his smell, his taste, his lips on hers. The ache has dulled some with time, but it still knocks the wind out of her when she least expects it.

If there is anyway to find him again, it is almost certainly in death.

But, Jenny doesn’t want to die.

She has been in this world long enough to be curious, to sometimes even be hopeful. She was watched Boston rise from its ashes to form something new. She remembers when Diamond City was only a few ramshackle huts, when Bunker Hill was only the pipe dream of a few ambitious caravan owners. Selfishly, she wants to see what happens next. She wants to watch the world come back together, reassemble its shards into a brave new civilization, one as flawed and messy and beautiful as the one that was lost to the fire.

And maybe, just maybe, she wants to be a part of it

She keeps to herself back in the house, leaving Edward to account for their activities. She makes dinner, and takes a shower, and bunkers down. She reasons that if she makes herself scarce, if she disappears into the tiny refuge that is her room, then he can find no reason to come for her. It’s a gamble, but it’s also the most sensible course of action.

At night, she lies in bed and listens to him pacing the hallways. She’s wonders if he ever sleeps, or if the artifact has removed the need for that. She holds her breath each time the footsteps grow close to her door, only relaxing once they’ve faded into the distance.

It is not particularly restful.

She wakes early after a night of half-sleep, sore and exhausted, but eager to get back to work on the renovations. She folds a change of clothes into her bag, concealing them under a first aid kit and a bottle of Nuka Cola.

She presents a silent Lorenzo with his tea before meeting Edward in the foyer. His face is still drawn, his features too tight, but he at least looks like he’s slept. They walk quietly across the decimated landscape in the early morning light, greeting the hired hands as they approach the house.

“It’s funny,” one of them mentions to Edward in passing. “I’ve never been in a corner of the ‘Wealth so quiet. Save for Cabot House,” he quickly tags on. “No mole rats, no ferals, no raiders. It’s almost like someone’s been cleaning house.”  
  
“Keep an eye on it,” Edward instructs. “I’m all for having a little help, as long as it’s not setting us up for another problem down the road.”

The merc nods, and they get to work.

She drags the mattress down the stairs, and out into the street. She’s not sure what to do with it. In the old days, she would have called municipal waste, but she somehow doubts that particular service has been a real focus in the post-apocalypse.

“Just leave it, J” Edward instructs from under the chassis of a generator. “Someone’ll take it.”

“Hope you’re right,” she says, mounting the stairs. “Gonna be an awfully attractive chew toy for the molerats otherwise.”

“Or junkies,” Edward grumbles.

By the end of the day, she has salvaged what she can of the furniture and dragged the rest out to the nearby alley. She has hung her spare dress on the barren curtain rod of the bedroom window, and begun to pry up the rotting floorboards. Edward has finished the chassis of the generator, and begun the preliminary work to insert the fission core, including connecting the necessary wires. It will be another trip to Parsons before he can complete it, but the amount they have accomplished gives her no small amount of satisfaction.

They return to the house filthy and exhausted. She hides in steaming hot showers, and avoids Lorenzo. Every day, it’s the same cycle, the same dance.

By the middle of the second week, the house is electrified, with the generator downstairs humming away. By the end, they’ve torn up the linoleum in the kitchen, replacing it with clean white tile. The third week sees the rotted floorboards on the second story replaced and the bathroom plumbing and fixtures changed. She picks her way into the attic and begins to empty that as well, salvaging the few items she can, and disposing of the various animal skeletons with as little contact as possible. She notices that the former occupant’s body has disappeared from the dumpster, and she tries not to contemplate where it’s gone, who might have taken it, or what purpose they might have had in doing so.

She has a sinking feeling it wasn’t to give the poor bastard a proper burial.

At night, the guilt begins to eat at her. She is scared, yes, but she is also strangely excited. They are building her a small corner of the universe, a place wholly and unequivocally hers. It is a place that bears no history for her, an opportunity to begin yet again. It is her pass to define herself in the framework of the Commonwealth that is, free from her ghosts.

Yet, her heart aches. This was never something she wanted and she would give it up to bring back Jack, and Emogene, and even Wilhelmina. She was content in her safe little bubble, content translating obscure languages, and passing her days reading. She fights the urge to imagine Emogene dropping by, some new schmuck in tow, enchanted by her charms and oblivious to her restlessness. She tries not to picture the way Jack could stare after Edward, love in his eyes, or the way they could settle perfectly on the sofa after a long day, Diamond City Radio on in the background, a bottle of the good bourbon, and two glasses in front of them. She misses the easy camaraderie, misses Jack’s puttering, misses the collective efforts to contain Wilhelmina when she has having one of her _moods_.

But she is grateful. Grateful to them for their kindness, for their help; for their friendship and their love; for putting her back together in the wake of everything that happened. She misses Emogene’s cavalier disregard for sensibility, the way she’d taken Jenny out on the town within a week of her arrival.

“What will the courts say if they see you?” Jack had asked, watching with a sort of bewilderment as Emogene had bundled Jenny out the door.

“You’re the doctor!” She had called back. “You’ll think of something.”

“Be careful with her, Emogene,” Edward had admonished her gently. “She’s still pretty fragile.”

“She can’t stay here all the time.” Emogene had countered. “The goal is to help her feel better, not make her even more depressed.”

 _And how did you pay them back?_ Jenny thinks. _When they needed you, you left_. _You left, and you left them to die. Some show of gratitude, Lands_.

She rolls over and buries her head under her pillow, trying not to think about it, willing the pit in her stomach to go away.

The fourth week starts with a trip to Bunker Hill. They have a household worth of goods to move, and carrying it on hired brahmin will be far more efficient than trying to lug it all themselves. She takes the opportunity to update Stockton, mentioning that the new warehouse is almost ready, that it’s simply a matter of moving in the goods. He spares a moment to look relieved, and tells her their mutual friend will be pleased to hear that.

Most of the furniture from the house she barely lived in is stored in the Cabot’s attic. Lorenzo watches the proceedings, commenting on the quality of the pieces as they’re carted out. Jenny reminds herself that this is the better outcome, that he could have refused to allow them to take anything at all.

In her room, she empties her closet into boxes, wedges her books in, along with her photos and her papers, and the other sundry things she’s collected. She removes the photo strip from her dressing table, pressing it in between the pages of the scrapbooks she secrets away under a threadbare sweater. Finally, she inserts a blank holotape into her terminal, copying its contents before purging them from the hard drive. When she is finished, the room is barren and pristine, almost unrecognizable as her refuge of more than two centuries.

She feels no grief, sheds no tears. This is not her home.

The walk to the house feels longer than it should. Her gun is drawn, but she expects no problems along the route. She spends most of it offering scritches to the brahmin closest to her, whose heads nuzzle against her side whenever they stop.

With the help of the men, the furniture is moved in quickly. She drags down the bed frame from the attic and knocks it together, pushing it against the wall. Within a few hours, she has a kitchen set, a rug, a dresser, a trunk, a sofa, and a small loveseat in place. She thanks the men, and Edward pays them. Then, they are gone.

Edward helps her stack the newly cleaned kitchen cabinets with dish and glassware, and hefts a few boxes up the stairs. When he is sufficiently certain she’s settled, they sit out on the small balcony off the second floor, Gwinnett Ales in hand.

“I think I fucked up,” she offers abruptly.

“Tiles in the kitchen look good. The loose one took after all.”

“Not with the tiles. I mean …” She takes a deep breath. “I don’t think I should have left Wilhelmina and Emogene.”

She can’t meet Edward’s gaze. “The hell would that have gotten us?” He asks.  
  
“I know, probably nothing. I just …”

“It would have gotten me another grave to dig, and nothing else.”  
  
“I left them to die!”

It comes out louder than she’d meant it to, and hangs in the air between them.

“I left them to die, and I didn’t even try to do anything about it,” she says, quieter this time.”

Edward pinches at what’s left of the bridge of his nose. “if they wanted to leave, they would have left.”

“Emogene thought she could knock him out, thought she had a chance of putting him back in the box. I should have been there to help.”

“She knew the risks, Jenny.”

“So did I. And I still should have stayed.”

He sets his beer down, and presses the heels of his hands into his eyes, then looks up. “Do you know what it would have been like to come back after Jack and find all of you dead? Hell, do you know what it would have been like to find _you_ dead? I remember when your parents brought you home, for chrissake. What do you think that would have been like? Jack, dead. You, dead. Me, alone with Lorenzo.”

“Look, J,” he continues, his voice softening. “I can’t tell you what you did or didn’t do, and I sure as hell can’t give you absolution, and even if I could, you wouldn’t take it. But I’m glad Emogene shoved you out the door, and I’m glad you didn’t hang around. She made her choice. You made yours. We all gotta live with it.”

She leans against the brick. “Just … Fuck.”

“Yeah. That  sums it up nicely.”


	3. Three

She’s surprised at how quickly she adapts to living on her own. She keeps the radio tuned the Diamond City station and talks to her parents on the HAM unit Edward buys her as a sort of housewarming present. She quickly grows tired of unpacking all at once, and resolves to find something else to do with her time.

On her next trip to Bunker Hill, she points out to Kessler that they’re in need of a medic, and inquires about renting space.

“I’m not a surgeon,” Jenny concedes. “But, let’s be honest: the facial reconstruction types aren’t shopping here anyway.”

Kessler quirks an eyebrow at her, but takes half off the first month’s rental. Jenny uses the savings to hire a merc she finds in Goodneighbor, hiding out from the Gunners.

“You’re a liability,” she says when he gives her his price. “And untested. You’re as likely to get me shot up as to keep it from happening.”

“250. Final offer.”

“Deal.”

“Jennifer Lands,” she says, extending a hand.  
  
“R.J. MacCready.” The man replies, giving her a firm shake.

“Welcome aboard.”

There’s a knock at the door one night, about a week after she’s moved in. She looks up from where she’s rearranging books on a shelf and heads for the door.

One of the mercs is standing there, along with Deacon, a bloody gash running the length of his left arm.

“Found him skulking around, Ms. Lands. He says he knows you.”  
  
“Thanks, Tim. He’s fine.”

“I like it. Very subtle,” Deacon sneers after she shuts the door.

“Oh shush,” she counters. “It’s insurance against the raiders.”

“From what I hear,” he says, pulling out a kitchen chair. “That’s not the only insurance.”

“What do you mean?” She calls from halfway up the stairs.

“Heard a rumor. Some guy named Pickman’s taken up residence not too far from you. He’s a painter. Hear raider blood’s his pigment of choice,” he offers as she hops back down the steps, bag in tow.

“That’s barbaric,” she says, pulling out a chair and dragging it so that they’re almost knee-to-knee. “Let me see that arm.”

“Would explain why it’s so quiet around here.”

“No one man could take on an entire raider gang.”

“Speak for yourself,” he puffs in mock offense.

He hisses when she begins leaning the wound. “It’s cute,” he offers, looking around. “Your place, I mean.”

“Yeah,” she says, attention on his arm. “It’s a nice place. Was pretty rough at first. Got a lot better when Edward got the purifier and the generator working.”

“Easy living,” he says as she reaches for the gauze. “How are you holding up?”

She sighs. “Lorenzo’s the Sword of Damocles. It feels good to be out of his direct ire, but a lot less good to know Edward’s still there.” She resists the temptation to add that he’s there _because_ of her. “I mean, when … if he goes nuts and shows up here, there’s not a lot I can do.” She shakes her head. ”As for Jack and Emogene…” Her voice trails off. “I’ve lost a lot of people. I didn’t think I’d lose them. But, ” she presses on, securing the gauze to his arm. “I’m pretty good at mourning.”

“Heard you’re doing something about it,” Deacon ventures.

“You hear a lot, don’t you?”

“Stockton mentioned you set up shop. He’s nervous having a tourist around. Thinks it’ll compromise things.”

“What’s your take?” She says, refusing to meet his gaze.

Deacon lets out a long breath. “I think you’re entitled to do what you want.” He shrugs the shoulder of his good arm. “If they come for Stockton, and they get anything out of him, they’ll come for you next.”

Jenny catches her lip between her teeth. “What are the odds?”

“He’s got three suspected Institute informants working for him.”

“What?”

Deacon nods. “Don … he got plans to build a device to get into the Institute. That’s all I can tell you. We got him in, and that was some of the intel he brought us out.”

Jenny stares at him, dumbstruck.

“He’s shifting them down south, some line about wanting to expand into new markets, get new sources. They won’t be around much. So, that helps. But, you should know it’s a risk.”

She worries at her lip again. “I mean, I’ve lived with it this long…”

“You’d be in a position to help a lot of people. Lots of folks pass through Bunker.”

“Good penance,” she says, softly.

“Penance?”  
  
She nods. “Catholic thing. When you fuck up, you do something to make up for it. Bigger the fuck up, bigger the thing to fix it. Used to mean prayers, but I don’t buy it.”

“What are you --- “ She shoots him a look. “Oh.”

She nods. “I let two lives get taken. I’ve got some lives to save to try to make up for it.”

“My advice isn’t worth much, but don’t carry it with you.”

She shakes her head. “Maybe. In time.”

He stands, pushing the chair in behind him. “Thanks for the help.”

“Anytime.”

She walks him to the door, and watches him disappear into the darkness. She wonders where he goes, but knows better than to ask. 

\---

Her first few cases at Bunker are simple. There’s some burns, a few broken fingers, and a brahmin bite. She gets her first gunshot wound a week in, but it’s nothing she hasn’t treated before, either with Deacon or the Cabots’ hired hands.

The first case that scares her is a caravan greenhorn who’s taken a brahmin horn through the cheek. She knows what to do; she knows the procedure. Jack quizzed her endlessly, made her pass his medical school exams from the most recent go-around. She’s as qualified as anyone to do this.  
  
Except she hasn’t done it before, and it’s an infection waiting to happen and she desperately wishes Jack were here.

She shoots him up with Med-X and cleans the wound with the water and disinfectant she’s brought from the house She packs that side of his mouth with clean cotton, then stitches him back together. She covers the wound with gauze, and tapes it down. Her hands shake until she sticks him with a Stimpak, a final guard against infection.

“There,” she says, hoping her voice carries the confidence she desperately wishes she had. “Make sure you rinse after you eat. Brush your teeth if you can.”

He’s woozy, but can still stand. “Thanks, doc.”

He staggers off, and his boss slips her 200 caps as payment. She turns, and hands half to the merc.

“What’s this for?”  
  
“Consider it hazard pay if I ever pass out on you.”

“ _Real_ comforting from a doc.”  
  
“I’m a medic, not a doctor. I don’t have a degree. Besides,” she says, reassembling the contents of her medical kit. “You might wanna sit down. You’re lookin’ a little green around the gills.”

He’s quiet after that.

\---

Edward does a double take the first time he sees her set up. He looks ragged and broken, but she swears there’s a glimmer of pride in his eye.

“How’d you get Kessler to agree?” He asks.  
  
“Pointed out to her that, on the medicine front, Diamond City was kicking their ass.”

“That language, huh?”

“Well, maybe a bit more delicately.”

“How’s business?”

“Decent,” she says. “Some run of the mill, some … not so much.”

“What---“  
  
“Guy got gored in the cheek by a brahmin.”

Edward winces.

“Don’t know how he managed it,” jenny continues. “I’ve never met a brahmin who was anything other than docile.”

“You meet a lot of brahmin, J?”

“More than the last time you saw me.”

“Touche,” he counters. “Here. Was planning on bringing this over later.”

She pockets the paper-wrapped package gratefully. The small stash Emogene shoved into her suitcase has her covered for the next six months, at least; it’s the intent behind the vial that matters for now, though she’s grateful for the ability to keep some on reserve for emergencies.

“You still sure about this?” She asks.

Edward nods. “It’s better this way. You get what you need. I get a shot at keeping him on a leash.”

Jenny’s brow wrinkles. “Just … be careful.”  
  
“Could say the same to you,” Edward intones warmly. “Watch your back.”  
  
“I’ll do my best,” she says, waving as he turns to leave.

“Who was that?” MacCready asks, returning from a conversation with one of the Capital Wasteland traders. He looks worried, but Jenny decides against prying.

“Old friend,” she answers, busying herself with an old copy of an HG Wells novel. “Had a package for me.”

“A package, huh?”

“And people think delivery is dead." 

\---

After that, she starts seeing Edward with some regularity. He’s not there with the same frequency as when Jack was enmeshed in his research, but it’s often enough to let her keep an eye on him, a fact Jenny draws some comfort from.

“How’d you convince him to send you out for supplies?” She asks one day. “I thought he’d be keeping a tighter leash.”  
  
“Med-X,” Edward responds. “In his tea every morning.”

Jenny’s eyes bug. “Have you lost it?”

“Nah. It barely affects him --- just takes the edge off.”

“Jesus, Edward. I know keeping him in check is still top priority, but that’s a hell of a dangerous way to do it. What if he finds out?”

Edward sticks a cigarette in his mouth and lights it. “What was it you used to say as a kid … something about burn that bridge when you come to it?”

“And I believe you were the one who was always correcting me that it was _cross_ the bridge.”

“Maybe you had a point.”  
  
“I was twelve.”

“You were still mutterin’ it at seventeen.”

“When was the last time you listened to a seventeen year old?”

He eyes her as he takes a drag off his cigarette. “You got a better plan?”

“No, “ she concedes.

“Then I’ll just have to go with this one.”

\---

She finishes her first month with a small profit after rent and supplies. She doesn’t need the money for the moment, not with Edward still working inside Cabot House, but she still takes it as a sign that she’s doing some small amount of good.

It’s nice to have a reason to get somewhere in the morning, an expectation to live up to. Bunker Hill’s residents and passers-through have gotten used to seeing her there, perched behind a counter with a merc behind her, ramshackle red cross sign mounted over head. She’d like to get one in neon, but she worries it would be too showy.

_Might help drive some more business, though_ , she thinks.

There is satisfaction in fixing what’s broken, in curing small ills. She cannot change what has happened, cannot change what she has done, but she can set a bone. She can suture a cut. She can bandage a burn. They are small, but they are better than nothing.

\---

A man runs up to her one day, frantic. He explains that he and his wife are caravaners from the Pitt, and that his wife is pregnant, and her water popped, and _please, doc, we don’t have a lot of money, but we need help_.

She follows him a quarter mile outside of Bunker, MacCready tailing behind.

The man’s wife is small and frail looking, and obviously very pregnant, but, there is a smirk on her face and profanity pouring out of her mouth with each contraction. Jenny likes her immediately.

She takes a moment to get her bearings, get their names, Jack and Liccy, and utter a prayer into the ether that _Jack, if you’re out there, I have only ever read about this. Help me out because I’m over my head_.

They move Liccy onto a sleeping bag that’s been unzippered and spread out, and Jenny pulls on a pair of gloves. It dawns on her that, from everything she’s read, she is utterly without the tools she needs. She has a surgeon’s kit, not an obstetrician’s, and the training for emergency medicine, not birth.

Jenny realizes that none of that matters, that women have been giving birth for thousands of years, and that, right now, she needs to focus on what she _can_ do.

A million old world questions bubble up. _Have you been seen by a doctor at all during your pregnancy? Have you been sick? What’s your nutrition been like? Any out of the ordinary bleeding? What was your alcohol consumption like?_  
  
She grits her teeth and reminds herself she wouldn’t know what to do with the answers even if she had them.

“She’s awful close,” MacCready says, jarring Jenny away from her worries.

“You’ve been through one of these before?”

“Couple,” he says.

She lets out a long, slow breath. “Thank god for small miracles.”  
  
“Aren’t you a _doctor_?”

“I’m a _medic_. I don’t have a degree.”

“You’re a doctor. _No one_ has a degree.”

“I didn’t practice on pregnant women!” She hisses quietly. “I got started helping to patch people up who got hurt on jobs. Broken bones, cuts, minor surgeries. I graduated from there to bigger things, but when you practice on mercenaries, not a lot of pregnant women. Not a lot of births.”

“Shit, well. We’re in for it now.”

About an hour later, Liccy’s fully dilated and begins to push. Her husband holds her hand, and gives her water from the purified containers that travel as part of Jenny’s kit. Mac vacillates between keeping watch for trouble and offering Jenny commentary in hushed tones. She’s surprised at how helpful he is, how invested in making sure the delivery goes well.

“Deep breath, deep breath,” Jenny keeps repeating. “You’re doing great.” She’s not sure if it’s to reassure Liccy, or herself.

For the short time she was pregnant, Jenny has to admit she had never considered the end result of that state. Yes, she had imagined life with baby, but birth simply hadn’t factored into those imaginings. 

Twenty minutes later, she hands Jack a seemingly healthy baby boy, and cuts the cord. They stay with Liccy through the afterbirth, then help them into Goodneighbor and a room at the Rexford.

Sitting at the bar, she offers a MacCready a toast. “Thanks for having my back.” She says. “I appreciate it.”

“You’re not so bad, boss,” he says, clinking bottles. “Not so bad at all.”

\---

In February, traders arrive from California. They bring seeds, and books, and Sunset Sarsaparilla, something Jenny was sure had gone out of existence with the rest of the world. There’s a doctor with them, a tall blonde man with a dry sense of humor named Arcade. They end up talking shop over beers at the impromptu party Bunker manages to throw together to welcome their faraway guests.

“Wait, there’s a still a real university out west?” She says, shocked.

“Close as you’ll get. The Followers take education seriously. “

“Christmas. What I wouldn’t give to have that out here.”

“What’s training like?”

“Depends. I was trained by a doctor who had doctoring in the family, complete with the medical textbooks and surgical journals and med school exams from before the war.”

“Impressive hoarding.”

“You’d better believe it. I can’t speak to anyone else. I’d assume more or less the same? Maybe less the family connection, and more books. At least, that’s my hope. There’s not many doctors out here; me, another two in Diamond City, and one or two floating around.” She takes a sip of beer. “Well, that’s not counting the Institute and the Brotherhood.”

Her drinking companion bristles visibly.

“They aren’t my favorite either, “ she adds. “But I’d be remiss in not mentioning them. They came in on an airship which, was impressive, might have been … overkill.”

“An airship? Like, a real airship? Like, one that _flies_?”

She nods. “It’s anchored down at the old airport. It’s impressive, really, but coming in here, broadcasting some message about ‘don’t interfere?’ It doesn’t bode well. Especially not when we already had the Institute to worry about.”

“Alright, I’ve heard a lot of stories about the Institute, but given that they keep coming from passersby on the road, it’s been more fractured fear than anything else.”

Jenny lets out a long sigh. “Whatever you’ve heard about the Institute, the truth is probably worse. We don’t know who they are, or where they are, but they’re responsible for a good chunk of the mess that’s keeping people from making progress here.”

“At first, they tried to cooperate with the rest of us, but that didn’t last long. That’s when trouble started. A while back, there was a movement to get some kind of unified government --- the Commonwealth Provisional Government, it was called. The Institute massacred everyone gathered for the meeting. It’s not like it would have gone too far, anyway, but it’s the principle of the thing. Plus, I’m pretty sure we have them to thank for the mutants.”  
  
“Shit. They’ve got FEV?”  
  
She nods. “Everyone’s pretty certain. We didn’t have muties until fifteen or so years ago, but we sure as hell do now.” She takes another sip of beer. “But what you have to understand about the Institute, about why people are so afraid of them, is that they take people.”

“You mean, like, kidnapping?”

She nods. “People are just … gone. And they don’t come back. Sometimes, the Institute leaves a replacement, something called a synth. Synths look just like humans, but anyone who really _knew_ whoever it was that disappeared can almost always tell that it’s not them.”

“They’ve taken out at least one town. Place called University Point, down on the coast. According to those who’ve been there, there’s nothing. No signs of a struggle. No bodies. Everything left just the way it was --- but with absolutely no one there. No one knows why they take who they do. Adults, teenagers, kid: it doesn’t matter. Everyone’s fair game.”

“Well, that’s sufficiently terrifying.”

“Go back west, young man,” she drawls.

“Between the Brotherhood and the Institute, you’ve got a compelling argument.”

“They’re both a worry; I won’t lie.”

“There any safety in numbers?”  
  
She shakes her head. “Our biggest settlement’s your most likely place to be nabbed, but it’s happened even in some of the tiniest settlements. Goodneighbor’s fairly safe, as far as the Institute’s concerned, but it’s … sort of a slum, otherwise.”

“Run down?”  
  
She shakes her head. “All things considered, it’s pretty intact. But, if you need a petty – or not so petty – criminal, as well as all manners of mind-altering substances, Goodneighbor’s your place. Unfortunately, it’s also got the only hotel and the nicest bar in the Boston ruins.”

Arcade lets out a long sigh. “And I thought things were bad out west.”

“Why? What happened out west?”

“A faux-Roman, casus belli spouting tyrant and the embodiment of bureaucratic red tape got into a pissing contest over who got to control a dam that never belonged to either of them in the first place, and a lot of innocent people got caught in the crossfire.”

Jenny’s mouth hangs agape. “That … sounds like a mess.”

“That’s putting it mildly. Why do the people who _should_ be capable of something more, something better, insist on running back over the same, old, barren ground?”

She shakes her head. “Blow up the world, and we still won’t learn.”

\---

It’s Arcade who first mentions the Mark IV Auto-Doc to her, hauled across the country from the sands of the Mojave.

“A … friend of a friend repaired it,” he explains. “Works perfectly, but it’s got an … interesting personality.”

“What? Does it get sassy?”

“You’ll … just wait,” Arcade tells her. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Hi folks!” The machine chirps cheerfully. “I’m Otto, your friendly neighborhood Auto-Doc! What can I do for you today?”  
  
“Oh my god,” Jenny breathes.

“I told you he was interesting. Otto,” Arcade begins. “Activate manual control.”

“Okey doke!” The machine responds.  
  
“Why is he this happy?” Jenny asks. “I always heard they’re were pretty bland.”

“That _friend_ who reprogrammed him may himself have been a reprogrammed Securitron with an unnervingly sunny disposition.”

“The robot reprogrammed another robot?”

Arcade nods.

“What are you people _doing_ out west and can we hire you to do it here?”  
  
“If you like bureaucracy, gangs of Elvis impersonators, and anarchist doctors and teachers, we’re the ones you’re looking for.”

“Elvis …?”

“When in Vegas…” Arcade shrugs.

Jenny turns her attention to the robot, scrolling through his manual, and then his functions. He answers her questions, his good cheer unwavering, even in the face of Arcade’s occasional jabs.

“And you’ve seen him work?” She asks.

“Oh, yes,” Arcade says. “More often than I would have liked.”

“And he’s … y’know … competent?”

“Only error I’ve ever seen is user error.”

Jenny shudders. “Well, that’s a story I’d like to never consider again, thanks. You know how much they want for him?”

“You’re not gonna like the number.”

“Try me.”

“Eleven thousand.”

Jenny takes a sharp inhale. “Alright, that’s …. alright.”

“Yeah, that’s the price they’ve been pitching.” Arcade pushes his glasses up his nose. “But I know that the best offer they’ve gotten is barely a quarter of that.”  
  
“Really?”

He nods. “Most people find the personality more than a bit unsettling.”

“He’s sweet,” she counters. “A little overly enthusiastic, but sweet.”

“You might be able to get them down.”

Jenny crosses her arms, and looks the Auto Doc up and down. “He’d pay for himself…”

“You get a lot of surgeries?”

Jenny nods. “Lots of people looking for cosmetic work. Not something I can do, but something our friend, Otto, can.”

“ _Cosmetic_ work?”

“Yup,” she says. “Everything’s still shitty, but damnit, people still want to look pretty. Some things never change.”

“Are you even old enough to be cynical?”

She shoots him a smirk over her shoulder. “I could tell you stories you wouldn’t believe.”

\---

It’s a hard bargain, but she negotiates the traders down to 6,000 caps. It eats everything she’s made since opening, and dips into her savings, but she’s pleased.

MacCready, however, is not.

“It’s creepy, boss.”

“You’re afraid of a robot.”

“Nothing should be that cheerful when it’s about to cut you open.”

“You’d prefer the doom and gloom route?”  
  
“I’d prefer if he wasn’t _cheering me on_.”

Jenny shakes her head. “It’ll be fine. If it bumps up the number of clients I get, it’ll mean a nice pay raise for you.”

That puts a prompt halt to the complaints. 

\---

“J,” Edward says when he finally meets Otto, staring up at the machine parked in the entryway of her house. “How’re you planning on getting him back and forth? Don’t think he’s built for shootouts.”

“Armed escort...?” She ventures. “Even charging 250 caps less than Diamond City, I’d only need one surgery a week to make it worth it.”

The ghoul pushes back his hat. “You think you’ll get it?”

Jenny chews on her lip. “I mean, I hope?”

“You’re gonna need a good ad, Lands,” he says.

“Well,” she shrugs, “There’s always the radio.”

\---

Of course, the radio means a trip to Diamond City, a venture she refuses to take lightly --- or alone.

“What’re you so nervous about here?” MacCready asks her. “Just a bunch’a rich people.”

Jenny shakes him off. “Am I paying you or no?”

“Could be paying me more.”  
  
“I’m working on it.”

Travis is smaller than she’d expected, somehow gawkier and scrawnier than his voice would suggest. He’s obviously uncomfortable to have anyone knocking at his studio door, let alone someone with an armed mercenary in tow, but he’s polite and as helpful as Jenny suspects he’s capable of being. She gets five ads a week for forty caps, ads that promise all the benefits of surgery without the risk of human error and for 100 caps less than anywhere in the Great Green Jewel.

She doesn’t notice any real difference, at first. She’s averaging about the same number of people for services, the same number of Stimpaks and RadX and blood packs sold. Her first facial reconstruction customer comes in the second week of her ad, a man in his early forties from the Upper Stands, determined to prove to his philandering wife that he, too, can carry on an affair with a graceless sort of aplomb.

He’s surly and rude, and tries to negotiate down on the price. MacCready looks appropriately tough when she coolly reminds the man that they are a business, not a charity, and if he takes offense with their pricing, he would do well to look elsewhere.

Eventually, he relents, and hands over the money, grumbling away at poor Otto. He is still rude when he emerges several hours later, face swollen, and neatly wrapped in bandages.

But the caseload begins to pick up.

By the time the California caravan is preparing to head south towards Capital Wasteland, she’s getting four clients a week.

“I’ll give you credit,” Arcade says. “I didn’t think you’d find enough people who could put up with him long enough to let him work.”

“Credit should go to your friend who repaired him. Otto does beautiful work, as far as I can tell.”

They’re back drinking, this time sitting in the empty guard post inside the memorial.

“You should stick around,” she ventures. “We could use more good doctors.”

“I’m not much for bedside manner.”

“Then teach.”

“I don’t even have the supplies.”

“We’re never hurting for cadavers here.”  
  
The man grimaces. “Not what I meant.”

“Point stands, though. We could use someone teaching.”

“Why not you?”  
  
“I’d feel like a fraud.”

“And what makes you think I wouldn’t?”

“You went to school. You did research. You’ve been practicing medicine since you were, what?”

“Twenty.”

“So, you’re not a fraud. And,” she says, lowering her voice. “If the Brotherhood isn’t your cup of tea, Capital Wasteland isn’t the place to go.”

“The first night we were here, did you not tell me about the Brotherhood airship parked at the airport?”

“I told you about the Institute snatching people, too, and you still hung around.”

“And continuing to hang around would be tempting the fates. Besides, where would I even _open_ a school?”  
  
“Goodneighbor.”  
  
Arcade’s eyes narrow. “Where?”  
  
She shrugs. “Talk to Hancock.”

“Who’s Hancock?”  
  
“The mayor. Bring him some Jet, and tell him you want to open a school.”

“Bring him some --- wait, what?”  
  
“Bring him some Jet. He likes Jet. He will like _you_ if you bring him Jet.” She cocks her head. “Actually, you might be his type anyway.”

“Why is the mayor of Goodneighbor going to help me if I ply him with drugs?”

“I told you: he likes Jet. Besides,” she shrugs. “With him,it’s all about ‘of the people, for the people.’ Convince him it’ll help the average wastelander, and he’ll do _something_. “

“You’re drunk.”  
  
“I’m half a beer in; I have not yet begun to drink. And that wasn’t a no.”

“It wasn’t a yes, either.”

“You’d be in august company! True innovators in the wastes.”

“Look, you’re very pretty, but you’re the wrong type to try for overt flattery, Jenny.”

“I’m not going for flattery --- I mean it! You’d being creating something that hasn’t existed on the East Coast since before the bombs. You can’t tell me that doesn’t appeal to some part of you, even if it isn’t your vanity.”

He sighs, eyeing her over his glasses. “Well, _fortis fortuna adiuvat_.”

Jenny stares blankly at him. “I speak French, not Latin.”

“Fortune favors the bold.”

She grins. “I knew you’d come around.”


	4. Four

After six weeks, she’s begun to turn a profit on Otto. Arcade’s got his first class of eager new recruits, most of them pulled from the best and brightest of the Diamond City Schoolhouse. She’s upped MacCready’s pay. Edward is either at the Hill or at her house at least once a week. She hasn’t seen much of Deacon, but she’s learned, after almost eleven years, not to let that be a marker of anything.

Life begins to feel normal.

It does not last.

One early March afternoon, the air crackles with something like static electricity, like the way the books say it does before lightning strikes. Jenny feels the hair rise on the back of her neck, and turns to ask MacCready as the world around her explodes with Institute synths. She ducks down and reaches for her holster, drawing her revolver as the merc joins her behind her makeshift counter.

“What the fuck! What the _fucking_ fuck!” He exclaims.  
  
“I thought you were trying to swear less,” she intones, taking aim at the nearest gen-2.

“Not gonna matter if these bastards get us.”

The wind picks up, and Jenny takes a moment to look up while reloading. She thinks to offer a silent prayer of gratitude to the powers that be for unleashing this on a day when Otto was stored safely in her house before the sight before her eyes truly registers. “Son of a bitch,” she mutters.

“It’s the goddamn Brotherhood!” MacCready calls.

“Let’s just hope they’re here to give us some back up.”

The ground shakes as twenty Brotherhood soldiers clad in Power Armor drop from hovering vertibirds, and more still pour down from hanging ladders.

The air pops again, and another round of synths appears in the center of the market, pistols firing. MacCready pops the head off the one closest to Stockton, while Jenny shoots the knees out on one near Deb. Whoever’s standing watch is doing their best to thin the crowd, but keeps getting stymied by the profusion of Brotherhood soldiers and civilians trying to help with the defense.

Somewhere around the third wave, she notices a small group of people in matching coats, hauling machine guns. There aren’t many, maybe only four or five but it’s enough to make an impression. The coats seem to do a good job dealing with the Institute issued energy pistols, and she wonders how they could have been so well-prepared. One cracks his machine gun across the torso of one of the synths, then empties a hail of bullets into it while it twitches on the ground. She’s hesitant to characterize their current position as winning, but together, they’re at least holding their ground.

Briefly, she thinks she sees Don. Briefly, she hopes for a stray bullet to find its way through his gut.

On the fifth wave, a man in a long black coat appears with the synths. He marches straight for Stockton, though whoever is standing watch does their best to fell him.

“Aim for him!” Jenny yells to the merc.  
  
“Why?”  
  
“Doesn’t look like good news.”

The watchman and the merc manage to fell the man in black, and turn their attention back to the incoming wave. Bodies are beginning to litter the ground now, some wounded, others dead. The air cracks and another black-coat appears.

“Him again?” MacCready yells.

“Think it’s a different one,” Jenny answers, fumbling with the reload. Once again, he heads straight for Stockton, and once again, he’s felled by the combined efforts of the two snipers.

After the tenth wave, Jenny is exhausted. She is out of bullets, and her nerves are raw. As the final synth falls, she waits, crouched behind her counter, for that pop, and the acrid smell that accompanies the arrival of another group of automatons. Five minutes. Ten minutes.

She grabs her bag and hisses at the merc to cover her. She begins triaging those left alive as the Brotherhood rounds up its remaining members, marching out through the gates. The coat-and-machine-gun unit is gone. It is only their people left in the wreck, the haphazard assortment of traders and caravaners and those too poor for the ritz of Diamond City that have also formed the core of Bunker Hill.

They will survive; it’s what they do.

She patches the wounded, then begins helping with cleanup. A small group begins digging graves for the dead; another begins scrapping the fragmented metal corpses; and another rounds up supplies to repair the damage to the gates and shops. Jenny joins the scrapping efforts; she’s never been good with the dead, and it doesn’t seem the time to take a crash course in carpentry.

All the while, they wait.

She knows that this is the Institute’s goal, to rattle them off, scare them away from this place. She has no idea what strategic benefit it would grant them, save for Stockton; even then, she doubts one man would really be worth storming an entire marketplace for. It’s too much risk, too much effort.  
  
_But they did send the black coats, and those are certainly new_ , she thinks. _May not be Stockton, but it probably isn’t historic preservation, either_. 

\---

That night, she buys six bullets off of Deb, who waves her away when she tries to pay for them. It’s not a lot – hell, it’s the absolute bare minimum– but she reasons it will get her home with enough insurance to make it back the next morning.

She waves off the merc, thanking him for his help, and sets off.

It’s a quieter walk than she would like, and every shadow seems to menace a bit more than usual. She passes Cabot House and her heart aches; she fights the urge to knock on the door, and ask to be let in. She knows there is no Jack, no Emogene; there is only Lorenzo, and she’s safer on her own than with him.

Cutting back into her neighborhood, she tries to shake off the day. She is here. She is fine. They kept the casualties low. They’ve already made progress on the clean up and rebuilding efforts. Things will go on. The Institute has done these kinds of things before.

These are the things she repeats to herself as she says hello to the guards on duty, settles in and locks the door, slips off her shoes, and settles at her kitchen table.

 _It doesn’t matter_ , the nagging voice in the back of her head says. _They got in. They always get in. As long as they’re around, they will_ always _get in. These aren’t raiders. These aren’t supermutants. This is the Institute. And there’s not a lot you, or anyone else, can do to stop them._

She wonders what would happen to Edward if she just disappeared. She shivers, and decides not to dwell on it. 

\---

She’s barely gotten dressed from the shower when a knock sounds at her door. “Vault-Tec calling! Do you have a Geiger counter?”

“Mine’s in the shop,” she yells, padding down the stairs, then unlocking the door.

Deacon’s in a grimy jacket with a newsboy cap pulled low over his forehead. “Little bird told me you might need these,” he says, passing her a box of .44 rounds.

“How did you --- no. You couldn’t have … were you there?”

“I am everywhere,” he answers, nonchalantly.

She sighs. “Cryptic as ever. Thank you for these, by the way,” she says, setting the bullets down on the kitchen table. “Come, sit down.”

She reaches into the freezer, cracking ice cubes out of their tray, and popping them into two glasses, which she then proceeds to fill with water. She hands him one, and gulps down half of her own before she even realizes it.

“Who were the black coats?” She asks. “The ones with the Institute.”  
  
Deacon’s jaw tightens. “Coursers. Institute’s best synths, a living breathing seek-and-destroy order. They’re bad news. Very, _very_ bad news.”

“Why Bunker? Why not Diamond City?”  
  
He shrugs. “It’s a good way to rattle folks, keep them off kilter. People think because Bunker Hill isn’t as big, it’s somehow not on their radar. That’s just wrong. Besides, haven’t you read the paper? There’s already enough chaos in Diamond City with Piper Wright and her talk of McDonough being a synth.”

“That was months ago, though.”

“It was a hell of an accusation.”

She drains her glass. “Why are the black coats after Stockton?”

“He’s a Railroad agent.

“Sending two of them? In broad daylight? For a little old man whose daughter they already killed?”  
  
“Like I said, he’s Railroad.”

Jenny raises her eyebrows at him, before standing to refill her glass. “You just come by to play Santa Claus with bullets, or…?”

“Mostly. Wanted to see how you were taking your first courser spotting.”

“Consider me spooked,” she offers, leaning against the sink. “But more by the day in general, than just the black coats. Though,” she pauses. “It took the watchman and Mac an awfully large number of bullets to take him down.”

“They’re engineered like tanks.”

“Oh,” she adds. “I take it the matching coat and machine gun brigade were your people?”

“What makes you say that?”

“Well, they sure as shit weren’t the Minutemen.”

“Too refined?”  
  
Jenny shakes off the jab. “I’ve got no issue with them. I think their new guy, Preston Garvey, seems like good people from what I hear on the radio. I just don’t think they’re at matching uniforms level, yet. Sure, they’ve got the old fort back, but between getting that up and running, and crisscrossing the Commonwealth … they’re spread too thin to have had a group meeting at the tailor.”

“Was that _ever_ a thing?” Deacon asks, incredulous.

 “Yeah,” Jenny muses. “For weddings, at least. All the men had to get their tuxes to fit just right. “ She shrugs. “Other things, too, but it’s weddings that stand out.”

“Weird,” Deacon mutters.

“That was the way the world was.”

“Do you ever miss it?”  
  
“What?”  
  
“The old world.”

Jenny considers the question. “I miss pizza,” she finally says. “Pizza, cheese, and oranges, and ice cream, and flour, and air conditioning. I miss green grass, and green trees, and flowers. Functional roads. Those were all really nice. I miss swatable mosquitoes. Not having to worry about Deathclaws.”

She pauses, unsure if she really wants to really wants to continue.

“I miss Nick,” she finally adds, voice barely above a whisper. “And Jack and Emogene. And I miss Chicago,” she adds on. “ _God_ , I miss Chicago.” She pauses again.

“Not the shops? The people? The museums?” Deacon asks.  
  
“I told you a long time ago: my parents survived. Nick was dead before the bombs fell. Our friends in Chicago, as far as I can tell, took a direct hit; they never stood a chance. As for shops, you assume I had the money to _go_ shopping.”

“You say that like it’s a big assumption?”

“A coffee and donut cost, like, thirty dollars.”

Deacon stares at her.  
  
“It’s … 240 caps. Ish.”

He lets out a low whistle through his teeth. “Alright, I’m beginning to see your point.”

“There were food riots. Not a couple isolated ones, either. They spanned the country. The only ones who made out okay were the Feds and the military. They got everything. Everyone else just hunted for scraps.”

“Is that what you did?”  
  
“We were shielded … a little. Journalism didn’t pay much, but Nick made decent money on the detective racket. Got him a few perks here and there.“

She shrugs. “I feel like I swapped one set of trade offs for another. First, it was the bombs; now, it’s the Institute. First, it was crime lords; now, it’s raiders. Weird food, as opposed to barely being able to afford food. Though,” she concedes. “It was nice to have factories for things like medicine, and shampoo, and toothbrushes, and toothpaste. So, I’ll add ‘good personal hygiene’ to that list of old world blues.”

“How can you be so detached from it all?” He asks, but there’s no judgment in his voice.  
  
“Same as anyone else,” she says, downing her glass of water. “Practice.”

Deacon shakes his head. “I’m not sure if I should commend you on that, or take it as cause to worry.”

She shrugs. “You do what you have to do to survive.”

“That toll gets real high,” he says, looking down at the formica surface of the table.

“Yeah,” she says, quietly. “It does.”

\---

“Hey,” Deacon says on his way out sometime later. “Be careful out there. We’ve already lost a lot of good people. We don’t need to lose more.”  
  
She offers him a weak smile. “I don’t exist. You, on the other hand … take your own advice.”

\--- 

The next morning dawns earlier than she’d planned for with another knock at her door. “Ms. Lands?” One of the guards calls. “Someone lookin’ for ya! Says he works with you at Bunker.”

She unlocks the door and flings it open to find MacCready standing there, an uncharacteristic degree of worry on his face. “They need you at the market.”

“We get hit again?” She asks her heart beginning to beat faster.

He shakes his head. “They found another casualty from yesterday. 

Jenny’s shoulders sag, and she feels her breathing slow. “It can’t be that bad, then.” She yawns.

“It’s a kid.”

 _Fuck_. “One of the caravaners had a kid with them?”

“Not one of the caravaners. She’s Brotherhood.”

“Are you sure she’s a kid and not … you know … a short ---“  
  
“She’s not old enough to be a scribe,” he snaps. “She’s still got a baby face, and her uniform’s wrong.”

“Alright,” she sighs. “If she’s still alive, then what is it? A broken bone? A dislocated arm? Something Otto can handle?”  
  
“She’s sick. I don’t know what’s wrong. She’s got a fever. Her color’s wrong. She keeps throwing up.”

The whole time Jenny’s known him, she’s never heard MacCready care about someone like this. “Were you with her all night?” She asks, shock lacing her voice.

“Stockton was. He asked me to get you. He was very specific about it being you.”

“Alright,” she says, running a hand through her hair. “Come in. Sit down. I’ll go get dressed.” 

They’re out the door and on their way a few minutes later.

“What’s got you so worked up? Stockton offer you a bonus if you got me back before eight?” Jenny finally asks.  
  
“Does it always have to be the caps?”

“With anyone else? No. With you? It almost always is.”

“I’m not a complete bastard,” he snaps.

“No, but you’re financially motivated. “  
  
“And?”  
  
“And the two months you’ve worked for me, I’ve never seen caps light a fire under your ass like this. Not even when I plucked you outta Goodneighbor.”

“I’ve got a kid, alright? He’s sick. The way she was sweating, and shaking … it reminded me of him."

“Oh,” Jenny says, quietly. “He’s sick?”

“Yeah. He’s sick.”

They finish the rest of the walk in silence.

Bunker Hill is mostly quiet when security lets them through the gate, save for the small group of residents gathered near her booth.

The girl is small, and clad head to toe in Brotherhood gear. Her skin is hot and clammy to the touch, and when she wakes up, her eyes are glassy.

“You have a name?” Jenny asks, taking the girl’s pulse.

“Squire Halsey.”

“You have a first name?”

“Title works, ma’am.”

The girl’s heart is beating like a jackrabbit.

“Squire, you’re an awfully long way from the airport. You involved in yesterday’s excitement?”

“Squires aren’t authorized for combat, ma’am.”

Jenny sighs. “How’d you end up collapsed outside of our gate?”

“Got separated from my supervising knight. Went to look for him. After that, I don’t remember much.

“How long ago was this?”  
  
“Few days ago, ma’am."

She waves at the gathered crowd to disperse. _Nothing to see here, folks. Just good old fashioned gross negligence._

“Any recent radiation exposure or with any of our friendly Commonwealth wildlife?”

“No.”

“Any other injuries?”

The girl squirms uncomfortably. _That’s a yes_.

“What happened?” Jenny asks.

“Brotherhood business, civilian,” the girl says, attempting to sound brusque.

Jenny rolls her eyes. “What are you, ten? Eleven, maybe?”

“Almost twelve.”

“Too young to die of something stupid. What happened?”

“I should wait for one of our scribes. They’re trained for this.”

“If you’ve been missing this long, they’re not coming.”

“The Brotherhood would _never_ abandon one of their own.”

“Abandon? No. Write you off as MIA? Yes.”

“You’re---“

“You’re tachycardic and you’re running a fever. You’ve been vomiting, so you’re probably dehydrated. Your eyes are glassy and your skin is flushed and clammy. All that points to infection. You’re evading the question on injury, which tells me there’s _something_ , probably something that came from not being Brotherhood enough. You’ve been told we civvies don’t know what we’re doing and need to be saved, but in the meantime, you can’t trust us, right?”

The squire doesn’t answer.

“Look kid---“

“I’m a ---“

“You’re eleven. You can call yourself whatever you want, but you’re a kid. And, if you want to go wander off out there in this state and die some miserable death when this goes septic or when you run into some less than friendly wastelanders, feel free. But, you’re on your own to get off the ground.”

She sits back on her haunches, and watches as the girl tries to right herself, then flop back down.

“You done?” Jenny asks.

“It’s a piece of shrapnel. Left side. Above my hip.”

“Was that so hard?” Jenny asks, pulling on a pair of gloves. She cranes her neck to face MacCready. “They like this all over?”

He shrugs. “They were different back in Capital Wasteland, but that was a long time ago.”

“Come on,” she says, turning her attention back to her patient. “Off with the coat.”

The girl struggles out of the heavy material, then yanks up her shirt, revealing a pus leaking wound with a small piece of metal embedded in it.

“Wow,” Jenny offers. “Well done.”

Her patient doesn’t respond.

“I’m taking it you didn’t tell anyone about this because …”

“I was reckless. I was hot and took off my armor.” 

“And you were afraid if you told someone…”  
  
“Elder Maxson takes the squires’ training very seriously. Disappointing him is a terrible dishonor.”

Jenny takes a syringe from her bag and draws a small dose of Med-X into it. “Aren’t there other Elders? Ones who might be a bit more … understanding?”

“Elder Maxson just expects us to fulfill our potential. There’s so many abominations out there in the wastes that need to be eliminated if we want any chance of rebuilding. Humanity is counting on us.” The girl wrinkles her nose as Jenny sticks the syringe in above the shrapnel.

“Humanity can count on you after you’ve hit puberty,” Jenny mutters. 

“They have to be stopped. Ferals, synths, ghouls---“

“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Jenny interrupts, scalpel in hand. “Ferals are awful, and the Institute’s a bunch of monsters, but have ever _met_ a non-feral ghoul?” She avoids the synth issue; something tells her discretion over personal politics.

“If it isn’t human, it’s an abomination,” the small squire says resolutely.

“Why?” Jenny asks, working at the shrapnel.

“It’s a threat to mankind.”

“You have any proof?”

“Elder Maxson says so.”

Jenny fights the urge to roll her eyes again. “Any _empirical_ proof?”

“What’s that?”

“Observations. First hand evidence.”

She grows quiet.

“What’s the worst thing humanity’s ever had happen?”

“The Great War.”  
  
“And who was responsible for that?”  
  
“Irresponsible leaders armed with technology they should never have been trusted with.”

“Humans,” Jenny corrects, as she stitches up the incision and injects the girl with a Stimpak. “Say whatever you want, but at the end of the day, we’re our own biggest threat.” She sighs. “We’ll put out an APB for our people to flag down any Brotherhood patrols. You’ll stay here in the meantime.”

“Try not to call the customers abominations,” she adds, handing the girl a container of purified water. “And drink this.” 

\---

Her charge spends most of the day sleeping, a fact Jenny is inordinately grateful for. She likes children, but isn’t keen on the steady diet of propaganda this one’s seemingly been raised on. She appreciates petulance, but the dead-eyed recitation of the party line sends a chill down her spine.

At lunch, Mac brings their charge over a Nuka Cola and a box of Fancy Lads, and sits with her on the ground, talking. Jenny doesn’t pay much mind to the conversation, but can’t help notice the way he opens up with her. She smiles to herself; if she’s learned anything, it’s that she can never predict how people will surprise her.

By the end of the day, the girl’s color has improved, and her heart rate has settled into a pace that more closely fits into the normal range. MacCready has visibly relaxed, and jokes with her while keeping watch. Jenny’s almost tempted to send her home with him, but realizes she has no idea where _home_ is.

“I can keep an eye on her for the night, boss,” he offers before she can even ask.

“Where?”

He shrugs. “I can get her a room at the Rex. How much trouble can she get into there?”

Jenny eyebrows rise towards her hairline. “It’ll be a … cultural experience, for sure.”

“It’ll be fine. We’ll see you in the morning.”

“Wait!” She calls after him. “You want money to cover it?”  
  
“Nah, I got it.”

 _Yup, always a surprise_. 

\---

Arcade lets out a long sigh when she tells him about the day’s events over beers that night. “I’d heard the Eastern branch of the Brotherhood had moved away from the extremism. Guess not.”

“Think it’s a change in leadership thing,” Jenny volunteers. “MacCready, the guy with the gun, he’s from Capital Wasteland and says they were different when he was a kid. Speaking of which ---”

“Leadership changes?”  
  
Jenny rolls her eyes. “No. Children. How are your students?”

“They’re … progressing remarkably well. I don’t think some of them have ever had a real science class before, but they’re all literate. And they’re eager. And … you were right. There is no shortage of cadavers.”

“Let me guess: facilitated by the Neighborhood Watch.”  
  
Arcade nods. “I still can’t believe you sent me to Hancock.”

“It worked, didn’t it?”

“In the short term, enabling a drug addict usually does.”

“And in the long term, you’re proving your value. So, therefore, it worked.”

He takes a long, deep drink from his beer. “In any case, Daisy’s been great helping to get medical supplies. I have no idea how she managed it, but almost all of the students have a complete surgical first aid kit.”

“Daisy and KLEO both make the most of where they are, and do a remarkably good job at it.”

“I’ve got … _concerns_ about KLEO. Namely, that she’s going to kill us all. I can only hope it’s in our sleep.”  
  
“That’s reasonable,” Jenny offers, taking a long sip from the bottle. “She _is_ a rogue Assaultron, after all.”

“A fact which you’re all so blasé about.”

“Something’s gotta kill you. Might as well be an Assaultron with a great purr to her voice.”

Arcade shakes his head. “Your priorities leave something to be desired."

At home, she takes a hot shower and settles into bed, exhausted. She can’t shake the feeling that something is amiss, even if she can’t put her finger on it. She chalks it up to the tumult of the past few days, and buries her head under the pillow, willing sleep to come. 

\---

The next morning is comparatively leisurely. She wakes, and gets dressed, and manages to make herself something approximating a real breakfast. She dreams of cheddar cheese omelets and buttermilk biscuits, then reminds herself she is lucky to even have fruit, and not to get greedy.

Her walk is uneventful, and she tries to imagine birdsong. The world is too quiet without it, she decides, then scolds herself for falling into the old world blues trap. She reminds herself to grouse at Deacon the next time he’s at her kitchen table; ever since his question, she can’t help but think of all the things she misses about the world before the bombs. It’s a road she can’t, and more importantly, _won’t_ allow herself to go down.

MacCready and Squire Halsey are nowhere in sight when she settles at her counter. She hopes it’s simply because they’ve overslept or otherwise been detained, and not because there’s been An Incident.

When they finally show up, jenny’s pleased to see the girl looks much better. There’s a healthy tint to her cheeks, and she seems steadier on her feet. Jenny injects her with another Stimpak as she babbles on about the degenerate ghoul-mayor.

“Tell me she kept all of this to herself?” Jenny asks MacCready over the girl’s head.  
  
“Of course, mungo,” the squire replies.

Behind her, MacCready breaks into a grin.  
  
Jenny looks from one to the other, and then back again. “I’m missing something, aren’t I?”  
  
MacCready just nods.

“Well, then…” Jenny trails off.  
  
“She okay to take out for a bit?” The merc asks.

Jenny raises her eyebrows, but bites back the questions bubbling up. “Yeah. If she gets peaky, bring’er back. And nothing too strenuous!” She calls after them.

She books a few caravan traders for surgeries with Otto, and makes up a few batches of Stimpaks. She sells a syringe of Addictol to the same caravaner who always buys one when he’s up, and generally finds excuses to putter.

She’s been on edge since her conversation with Deacon, noticing all the ways the world has changed since the bombs, the little things that are gone, maybe never to return. It’s like a return to those early days, locked in Cabot House, when it all felt like a dream. She expects Jack or Emogene to emerge from the faceless crowd, or maybe even Wilhelmina or Lorenzo.

“Bad day?” A gruff voice asks, and Jenny jumps.  
  
_Edward_. “Had a conversation about the way the world used to be, the things we lost. You know: cheery stuff.“

“That’s never a good path to get you on.”

She shakes her head. “No, no, it’s not. I realized there’s no bird song this morning.”

“Hasn’t been for a long time.”

“I guess … I guess I never noticed it before.”  
  
“Comes with being out in the world more.”

Jenny hoists herself up onto the counter, sliding next to Edward.

“How’s the house?”

Edward gives her a single nod. “It’s a work in progress.”

“He hasn’t noticed?”  
  
“He’s got no clue, as far as I can tell.”

“That’s a positive.”

“Looks like you made it through the excitement the other day no worse for the wear.”

“Also a positive.”

“And your robot?”  
  
Jenny offers him a half-grin. “A third positive. He was sitting in my entryway when all hell broke loose.”

They sit quietly, and watch the hustle of people pass.

“I sort of envy them,” Jenny offers after a while.  
  
“Because they don’t know better?”  
  
She nods. “It’s hard to miss something that was never there. Harder to miss something that was, and never will be again.”

“Been thinkin’ about that one a lot, lately.”

She rests her head on Edward’s shoulder. “Yeah, me too.”

They stay that way for a minute before he presses a kiss to the top of her head, and tells her he has to go. She nods, reminds him that her door is always open.

Then, he is gone. Only then does she notice the paper wrapped package on her lap. 

\---

It’s almost dusk when MacCready returns, notably absent his partner.  
  
“She’s back in the wings of the Brotherhood,” he offers in response to Jenny’s worried look. “Patrol came by and she flagged’em down. Seemed happy to have her back.”

“Good,” Jenny says, trying to shake the gloom of the day away. “That’s fantastic, actually. Thanks for handling that.”  
  
“It was fun,” MacCready offers. “Been a while since I’ve been around kids.”  
  
“Mac,” Jenny asks. “Look, I don’t mean to pry, but where’s your son?” She swallows. “And why isn’t he with you?”  
  
The question must add ten years to MacCready’s face. “My boy’s sick,” the man answers, quietly. “Really sick. We … my wife and I, we came up here to look for a cure in the first place. It … didn’t go so well.”

“Oh…” Jenny says softly.  
  
“Yeah.”

She fingers the paper-wrapped parcel in her pocket, then pulls it out, along with one of the fresh Stimpaks. “Take these,” she says, handing them to him.

“What ---“  
  
“Don’t ask what it is, don’t ask how it works. Whatever he’s got, this’ll cure it.”

“MacCready looks up at her. “This isn’t a joke?”  
  
She shakes her head.  
  
“And you’re sure it’ll work?”  
  
She nods. “Go take care of your kid. Job’ll be here when you get back.”

“Why do this?”  
  
“Seein’ a lot of things I can’t fix these days. Might as well patch up the ones I can.”

“Thanks. Means a lot.”  
  
“Go,” she says. “But I better see your face again. You owe me an explanation of what the hell a mungo is.”  
  
“Heck!” MacCready calls back to her, already halfway across the market. “What the heck!”

She smiles to herself, and heads for home. 

\---

The next few days are mostly quiet. She sees patients, sets Otto up on his surgeries, and mixes a new batch of RadAway. She teaches a guest lecture to Arcade’s students on triaging injuries efficiently, and manages to do it without the voice in her head whispering how wildly unqualified she is to give it.

She sets foot back in Cabot House’s garden for the first time when Edward tells her he’s able to knock Lorenzo out for a whole day. She’s shocked to find everything as she’d left it --- even the garden.

“Did the best I could,” Edward offers. “Wouldn’t let anything happen to it.”

Her hug almost knocks him off his feet.

She passes a night in the Third Rail with Arcade, grading papers and wondering it it’d be possible to rewire Whitechapel Charlie into something resembling a pleasant barkeep. Arcade tells her to keep dreaming, and she reassures him that she fears Hancock’s ire enough not to try anything.

“Everyone talks about him like some kind of benevolent tyrant. It wasn’t the impression I got.”

“He likes to see himself as one of the people. The last guy who ran Goodneighbor was an old-fashioned scumbag; a violent sonofabitch by the name of Vic. Hancock raised what he calls a militia, what the rest of us might call a mob, and ran the guy out of town. Hancock took over the position of mayor. He at least tries to do right by people.”

“That’s neither a ringing endorsement, nor a stunning rebuke.”

“Goodneighbor’s a rough town with a real nasty criminal element, but it’s also safe haven for a lot of folks. Hancock does his best to fight for the little guy, and I appreciate that. He’s good people; I just wouldn’t cross him.”

“We had a fellow back west like that. Did the best he could for the people he considered under his protection, but with a violent temper for those who crossed him. Interesting juxtaposition.”

“At least you know what you’re getting with those types, though. “

“As opposed to…?”  
  
“I dunno. The Brotherhood?”  
  
“You know what you’re getting with them, too.”

“Only if you know their story.”

“Or watch how they treat people. I heard they’ve been seizing crops from the locals.”

Jenny wrinkles her nose in disgust. “Point made.” 

\---

The next day is a red letter day, a real standout event. One of Eddie Winter’s tapes finds its way to Bunker Hill vis a vis a caravaner turned treasure hunter.

“I think it’s got to do with that guy in the papers all over the ‘Wealth. You know, that guy, Winter?” The man says as Jenny stitches up the gash on his arm where a mirelurk has gotten too close. “Could be really something.”  
  
_Let it go_ , she tells herself. _Don’t do this. Don’t go down the rabbit hole. Nick would tell you to drop it._

“Where’d you find it?” She asks, trying to sound nonchalant.

“The old BADFTL office. I was hoping for scrap, and got this instead.  
  
_Nick would never have dropped it if it were you. He would have kept looking._

“I’m gonna make your day,” she says, pulling off her gloves.  
  
“Oh?” The man says, dragging his eyes up her chest.

“There are nine more tapes, scattered across the ‘Wealth. They’re probably in police stations. I’ll pay you 250 caps for each one you bring me.”  
  
“They worth something then, lady?”  
  
“Only to a very specific someone. They’d just be holotapes to anyone else.”

The man considers this, lolling his head to the side. “300.”  
  
“250, or I can find someone else.”

“Deal,” he says. “Think I read something on one of the terminals about the South Boston station.”  
  
She takes the holotape from the man, then diligently counts out the caps. She pockets the tape, and spends the rest of the day taking care of those who pass through. 

\---

Deacon shows up at her house late that night, face worried and shoulders drawn.

“You should expect a visitor tomorrow,” he tells her.  
  
“One of your people?”  
  
“Not exactly.”  
  
“Could you … elucidate on that?”  
  
“Preston Garvey.”  
  
She furrows her brow. “The General?”  
  
“One and the same.”

“Thought you didn’t care much for the Minutemen.”  
  
“It’s a bright, shiny, new day in Railroad-Redneck relations,” he drawls. “We were out of other options.” His voice is rough, as if he's been shouting.

“You probably wouldn’t tell me if I asked, huh?”  
  
“Ask me no questions; I’ll tell you fewer lies.”

\---

Preston Garvey is a throwback. Tall and handsome with a gentle demeanor and impeccable manners, she fights the urge to ask if he’s sure he’s not somehow pre-war. His easy smile is like something out of an old movie, and Jenny makes a mental note to dress Deacon down for not warning her.

“Dr. Lands?” He asks. “I’m Preston Garvey.”  
  
“Call me Jenny,” she says, extending a hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”  
  
“You too,” he says, shaking her hand. “A, uh, mutual friend said you might be a good person to talk to.”  
  
She nods. “Do you have time? I’d rather talk some place a little more secure.”  
He nods. “Lead the way.”

“Sorry for the paranoia,” she says, once they’re well enough on their way. “Since the Institute hit, well, everyone’s been a little more on-edge than normal.”

“Can’t blame folks,” Preston answers. “Having the Institute kick down your door is enough to rattle anyone.”

She nods. “And did they ever. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

She waves to the men on duty as she unlocks the door of the house.

“Not a bad set up, you’ve got here,” he says.  
  
She grins. “They’re good people. They keep trouble out.”

“How’d you end up with this place, anyway?”  
  
“Used to work for Cabot House. I left when things in the house changed, but I was, well, _am_ , good friends with their bodyman. He helped me out.”

“Holy,” Preston breathes, stepping foot into the house. “This is almost pre-War.”

She nods. “Cabots go way back in Boston. Their house has been standing for something like 400 years. They still have all the furniture, and more to spare. Some of it ended up here with me.”

“You must have left on good terms.”  
  
“As good as they could have been. Have a seat. Can I get you something to drink? Whole house is on a purifier, so the water’s fine.”

“Water’s great. Thanks,” he answers, taking a seat.

Jenny brings over two glasses, and sets one in front of him, before sitting down herself.

“How much did our friend tell you?” Preston asks, taking a sip.

“Not much. I know the team up no one saw coming happened, and he alluded to you needing a word. Beyond that, I’ve been in the dark.”

“The Railroad got their guy into the Institute. I don’t know how they managed it, but they did. He was running a covert op, but blew it when he shot the director of the Institute in the head.”  
  
“Well,” Jenny begins, raising her eyebrows. “That’s certainly one way to make your grievances known.”

“Going out with a bang, I guess. In any case, the Railroad realized they were at a dead end and reached out to us. We’ve started fortifying our settlements and the Castle, but we could use a few extra hands on standby for medical care.”

“You’re expecting them to hit you, too.”  
  
“Exactly. And our people aren’t prepared to handle that.”

Jenny considers this for a minute. “How much lead time do you think you have?”

“That’s the thing: we don’t know. Could be a few days, could be a few weeks.”

She nods. “I can stock you with Stimpaks, Med-X, and blood packs for now. Anything happens at the Castle, you can count on me to get there. Might wanna talk to Arcade Gannon over in Goodneighbor, too.”  
  
“The guy running the medical school?”  
  
She nods. “Claims he’s not much for bedside manner, but I think you’ll find him sympathetic to the cause. Might have to give him the quick version of what the Minutemen stand for, though. He’s still new … ish to the ‘Wealth.”

“Where’s he from? Capital Wasteland? The Pitt?”  
  
“The other coast, actually. Trained out in the Boneyard with a group called the Followers. Lots of doctors and teachers trying to do right by the average wastelander.”  
  
“Why’d he come east?”  
  
“Don’t know,” she shrugs. “I met him when he was passing through Bunker Hill with a trading caravan.”

“And he decided to stay?”  
  
“Go where you’re needed. People needed him here.”

“So, he set up shop. Just like that?”  
  
“It took a little convincing, but not a lot. He opened up the school, and now he’s knee deep in doctors to be who still haven’t mastered autopsy etiquette. Something about you’re not supposed to scream at the first incision…”

“Did you?”  
  
“Better. I fainted,” she grins.

She loads him up with all the supplies she has to spare, and promises him more in the coming days, if he sends her runners, then sends him off towards Arcade.

\---

 


	5. Five

Her man comes back the day after with the next tape. She pockets it, and tips him a few extra caps for prompt service, then reminds him that there’s more in his future, and returns to compounding Stimpaks. Arcade sends her a note by courier, informing her in no uncertain terms that if she were attempting to set him up on a blind date that she would not succeed, but that, yes, he may have signed on to help, and that yes, should the worst arise, he would see her at the Castle and that, yes, he would be over sometime in the near future.

The days fall into quiet routine; she treats patients or compounds supplies. She does a little business. She goes about her life without being noticed. She sees her patients, and makes her caps, and tries to make peace with waiting for the inevitable.

One morning, she shows up at her booth to find MacCready already there, a small boy shitting on his shoulders.  
  
“Mac, I didn’t expect you to bring me an extra set of hands,” she jokes. “How are we ever gonna put someone so cute to work?”

The boy giggles. “Silly mungo!”

MacCready just grins at her. “This is Duncan. Duncan, this is Jenny.”

The boy extends a tiny hand, and Jenny envelopes it in hers. “You’re a good man, Duncan. Keeping your dad in line is a tough job.”

The boy beams at her. “He’s a mungo, but I like him.” 

“Duncan,” Jenny begins. “Can I ask you a question?”  
  
He blushes.  
  
“What’s a mungo?" 

MacCready lets out a laugh. “Tell her, Dunc.”  
  
“A grown up!” He exclaims.

Jenny beams up at him. “Well, then. I guess I _am_ a silly mungo, then.”

MacCready keeps the boy close throughout the day, sometimes picking him up, and other times leaving him to play quietly on the floor behind the counter, but always keeping him in arm’s reach. She can’t blame him; the Institute is enough of a worry, but factoring in his newly improved health, and she can appreciate a little parental caution.

She can see the gauntness in his cheeks, the pock marks on his arms, the frail look of his bones : all signs of a body with a long way to go before it’s fully recovered. The little boy, though, seems unfazed. He chatters and giggles and stares in wonder at the world around him. At lunch, MacCready takes him to the top of the ruined tower to look out across the ruins; Duncan returns enthralled, wanting to explore it all, but promptly spends the afternoon napping, wrapped up in his father’s coat.

“He’s sweet,” Jenny says, watching the small bundle. “He looks just like you.”

MacCready’s smile is proud, but sad. “That’s my boy. Finally have a shot at a life with him.”

“Was that bad, huh?”  
  
MacCready nods, not looking at her. “Whatever you gave him, it made a hell of a difference. Thank you.”

“No point working for a medical practitioner if you don’t get perks." 

MacCready shakes his head. “Thought that usually meant free Med-X.”  
  
“I have _some_ professional standards. Where does he stay when he’s not with you?”

“With friends. They own a place in Goodneighbor, and I trust them. Helped me when I was on the run." 

“Listen, Mac,” Jenny begins, chewing on her bottom lip. “ I think there’s trouble coming. Might wanna help them shore up.”  
  
“What are you---“  
  
“It might be nothing. It might be a very big thing. I don’t know yet.”

“But, you know something, don’t you?”  
  
She sighs. “I only know what I hear, and word is trouble is coming.”

MacCready just stares at her. “What kind of trouble?”  
  
“You think the Institute hitting here was a fluke?” Jenny asks her voice quiet.

The man grows visibly pale.

“Make sure the people you trust are really the people you trust. Keep him close,” she says. “And if things get bad, leave. Head back to Capital Wasteland. Don’t stay here.”

MacCready nods, and kneels down to ruffle his son’s hair.

As dusk settles over the city, she kneels down to say goodbye, and finds Duncan’s arms wrapped around her neck. After a moment, she returns the gesture, wrapping her arms around him, and pulling him close. “Be good for your dad.”

“Might be a few days before I’m back,” MacCready mentions when she stands up again.

She nods. “Take your time; I’ll be here.”

\---

She lies in bed that night and feels something approaching satisfied. Here is this one small life that she’s fixed, that she helped save. Here is the proof that she can do more than just turn away, and allow terrible things to happen unchecked. Here is some scrap of the person she wants to be.

She dresses the next morning to the sounds of Radio Freedom in the background. Though the name makes her roll her eyes, and the music selection sometimes leaves something to be desired, it’s a good source of information. Besides after offering Preston Garvey her solemn word that she’d be there to attend to any battle aftermath, she feels guilty turning it off entirely.

The music cuts abruptly, and the usually serene announcer breaks in, panicked. Jenny doesn’t wait for the announcement, just finishes dressing, grabs her bag and the supplies she can spare, and heads out the door. Though it’s certainly a long walk from her house to the Castle, she crosses her fingers that the bulk of the fighting will have finished by the time she arrives.

She soon finds a group of volunteers from Goodneighbor also making their way south. She quickly finds Arcade among them, surgical bag slung over one shoulder, and plasma pistol dangling from a holster at his side.  
  
“Figured first group would hit the tail end of the fighting,” he explains. “I came along with group two.” 

“I just left the house this morning when I heard the broadcast, and started walking.”  
  
“That seems ill advised.”  
  
“As far as bad decisions go, it’s probably up there,” she nods. “But we’re walking into an active combat zone. That’s probably ranks pretty high, too.

They’re waylaid by a group of synths twenty minutes out from the Castle. They’re small, but well-armed, and manage to put Jenny and Arcade to work before they’ve even reached their destination.

\--- 

When the Castle comes in view, they realize they’ve made a grave miscalculation. The sounds of gunfire carry even at this distance, and the bulk of the group presses forward. Jenny lingers back, and catches Arcade’s arm.  
  
“So, you’ve been in a combat zone before, right?”  
  
“Years ago, yeah.”  
  
“Good. Any tips for shooting and bandaging?”  
  
Arcade looks at her. “Is this really the time for jokes?”  
  
“Who’s joking?”

Behind his coke bottle glasses, Arcade blinks at her. “You … You aren’t kidding.”

Jenny’s eyes flick from side to side, ensuring no one else is listening. “Until three or four months ago, I had never been anywhere without someone who made their living shooting.”

“Ah,” Arcade intones. “In that case, bandage quickly.”

“Oh, good,” Jenny drawls. “My specialty.

The battle rages as they cross the Castle’s perimeter, synths and Minutemen firing every which way. The turrets lay in smoking ruins, and the artillery has been reduced to rubble, for whatever good it might do. She ducks into one of the hallways, and begins dragging in wounded, shooting at nearby hostiles.  
  
She finds a rhythm quickly, dragging and triaging and patching. The militia’s own medic soon finds her, and the work goes quickly with an extra set of hands. The air cracks every few minutes, bringing a new wave of invaders, and with it, more wounded.

She’s eerily calm, and wonders if this is what shock feels like. As long as there is work to be done, people to be treated, there is no panic. There is no worry. There is just a kind of focus, and a growing frustration at the seemingly endless flood of mechanical intruders. Two hours in, her stomach is growling, and she allows herself a bite of mutfruit from the fortress’s now-decimated orchards. Before she can finish, though, the air begins to crackle once more, and she braces herself for another batch of incoming wounded.

She spots Arcade once, crouched in the archway almost directly across the courtyard. His lab cot is streaked with blood, but absent any immediate casualties, he’s focused on picking off as many gen-2s as he can.

The day drags on, with reinforcements continuing to pour in. The Castle’s hallways are now littered with wounded, and its courtyards spotted with bodies. She wonders how long they can last, how many more wastelanders will pour into the arena.

There’s a small group working on the transmitter at the center of the courtyard. Yes, there is the regular announcer, and another providing him cover, but there is also another man, this one focused on the machinery itself. She realizes the equipment must have taken a hit, and that the man must be in the wires trying to repair it.

 _Without that radio, we’re all fucked_ , she thinks.

When she looks back, she will blame that thought for her decision to dash out into open fire when the man takes a hit.

It’s a wound to the shoulder, though it’s thankfully not on the side she assumes to be his dominant one.

She jabs him with Med-X, and then a Stimpak.

“How much more do you have left to do?” She shouts.

“Maybe five minutes!”  
  
She pulls her revolver from its holster, and fires a few shots into the nearest assailant. She’s half way through a reload when a sharp pain rips through her left side. She lets out an involuntary yelp, drawing the attention of the mechanic.

“You focus on that!” She yells.

She feels blood beginning to drip down her side and stabs her own thigh with a dose of Med-X.

Someone manages to get a turret working again, drawing the attention of the remaining synths from the last wave. The mechanic throws a switch, and lets out a joyous whoop. The synths fall quickly, and the air does not hum with the now familiar crackle.

Jenny cuts through the man’s shirt and begins to clean the wound, then fishes out the bullet. She stitches him closed, and affixes a clean bandage to it. The man thanks her, and helps her up.  
  
“Wait!” A voice calls. “I’ll take her.”

She turns to see Arcade jogging towards them.

“I’m fine!” She calls. “There’s people hurt worse.”  
  
“You’ve got blood coming through your shirt. You’re a hazard to anyone you treat until there’s a bandage on that.”

She sinks down, careful to avoid the humming machine.  
  
“Thanks,” she says once she’s sure he’s the only one within hearing range. “When’d you spot it?”  
  
“Watched you get hit, “ he grits out, focus on the wound. “Was wondering how long you were planning on letting it bleed.”

She lets out a half-laugh, half-grimace. “I thought it’d be a bold, new fashion statement.”

“How much Med-X did you shoot up with?”  
  
“Full vial. You’re good.”

Arcade gets to work poking, and prodding, and stitching. “You should be fine. It’ll scar, though.”

She shrugs. “Not too many places to wear a bikini these days, anyway.”

Arcade hauls her to her feet, and she’s glad for the half a foot he easily has on her. “You can’t work for at least the next hour.”  
  
She nods. “Afraid my stitches won’t be pretty?”

“Afraid you’ll manage something approaching gross malpractice.”

\---

She spends most of the time helping to clear bodies and chassis. When her side begins to burn again, she knows she’s fine to return to work.

It’s slow and tiring, but most of the injuries are easily fixed. She encounters a few broken bones and burns that will take more time, but virtually all the survivors will walk away only a little worse for the wear. There are some, though, who will suffer long term; knee and shoulder injuries never quite heal right. There are a handful of serious injuries: sucking chest wounds and bleeding guts. They help those still capable of recovery, and try to make the rest comfortable. 

\---

When the sun comes up the next morning, Jenny is next to Arcade, leaning against the old stone of the building. Smoke trails up into the air from his cigarette, and she takes a sip of so-called vodka from a flask.

“Do you ever second guess yourself?” She asks. “On who to help, I mean.”  
  
Arcade shakes his head. “Sometimes, there’s nothing you can do. Back west, we’d find people up on crucifixes, and the kindest thing we could do was to overdose them.”

“ _Crucifixes_? Like, Jesus on the cross?”  
  
Arcade nods. “The Institute’s not the only monster.”

\---

She spends the morning sleeping on whatever precious little floor space she can find, head pillowed on her bag. It’s hardly the best sleep she’s ever had, but it’s better than trying to make the three-hour journey home while exhausted. She leaves the few supplies she has left with the medic-on-duty, checks on a few patients, and lets an equally exhausted Preston know that if anyone needs her, to send a runner to Bunker Hill, and she’ll be back.

She walks part of the way with a group headed towards Goodneighbor, then the rest by herself. The sun shines down, and the world appears almost peaceful.

The supermutant takes her completely by surprise. She scrambles backwards to avoid his board, and gets off a few shots at his knees, trying to slow him down. Her gun jams before she can aim for something more substantial, and she jerks backwards, trying to avoid being bludgeoned in the head.

A shot rings out from somewhere else, and the mutant collapses before he can take the swing, his board dropping to the ground behind him. Jenny looks around cautiously, bracing herself for the appearance of raiders, or something equally as unpleasant.

But there’s no one there.

She hurries the rest of the walk, on high alert to the possibility of more trouble. She’s grateful when her small house and the barricade around it come into view.

It’s only sitting in the shower that she truly realizes how sore she is. The soles of her feet burn and her side stings. Her shoulders feel every once of every person she dragged. Her neck is still tense. When she finally crawls out, and into a bathrobe and underwear, she considers sleeping on the floor; it would take far less effort than making it to a bed.

Instead, she drags herself down the stairs and into the kitchen, intending to make something to eat. The small sofa, however, soon proves too tempting, and she sinks down onto it, enjoying the softness and the silence.

She wakes up some time later to the sound of someone knocking at the door. She tightens her robe, and opens the door, gingerly.

“Official survey, ma’am. Do _you_ have a Geiger counter?”  
  
“Mine’s in the shop,” she yawns, stepping to the side to let Deacon in.

“Heard you had quite a night,” he says, once she’s shut the door. “How’s your side?”  
  
“How do you know about ---“

“Keeping tabs on the Institute is sort of my business.”

 _Of course_. Her face softens. “Once my shoulders and back and knees stop shrieking, I’m pretty sure it’s gonna hurt. But right now, I can barely feel it.”

“You eat yet?”  
  
She shakes her head. “Not unless you count a few mutfruits at the Castle.” She shrugs. “Getting home left me a little more rattled than I’d expected.”

“The neighborhood jolly green giant lean its head out to say hello?”  
  
“That’s one ---“ _Wait._ “How did…”

“I told you: ask me no questions, I’ll tell you fewer lies.”

She raises her eyebrows, but settles back down onto the couch without further protest, pulling a small blanket over her lap.

Deacon sets a small satchel down on the counter and begins unpacking it. “How’s soup sound?”

“Soup?” Jenny asks, rising to her feet. “How are you gonna---“  
  
A small pile of fresh produce is piled on her kitchen counter: tomatoes, onions, and garlic. Next to it is a small sealed container of what she assumes to be broth.

“I liberated them from our buddies in the Brotherhood.”

“How?” She breathes picking up the garlic. “I didn’t think this even _existed_ any more.”

“Last I heard, DC Brotherhood found an old DIA cache with a small seed bank. They’re officially classified as Brotherhood rations, so don’t expect to see them coming north any time soon, unless our friends give up their secrets.”

“Those glorious bastards,” she says reverently, picking up the onion. “Have you ever had tomato soup?”

“No, but I’ve had a recipe for the last six months. Though,” he says, turning to face her. “If you need to have some alone time with Mr. Onion, I understand if that comes first.”

She swats at him gently, and sets the onion down. “We’ll make soup, then you’ll see.”

“ _I’ll_ make soup,” he corrects. “You look like you’re gonna fall over.”

She nods. “I’ll be on the couch if you need me.”

“I’ve got a feeling you’ll be too busy sleeping." 

\---

He’s not wrong. She’s not sure how long she’s out for, but the next thing she knows, Deacon’s gently shaking her shoulder. “Come on, sleeping beauty. Gotta eat.”

Her kitchen smells of tomatoes and onions, and her mouth waters. It’s been so long since she’s had soup, let alone soup that someone else made for her. She thinks of Nick, Jack, and Emogene and her chest tightens; she draws a deep breath and hopes that it passes quickly.

“I couldn’t find your bowls,” Deacon says, offering her a coffee cup. “Careful, it’s hot.”

She takes it gratefully, inhaling the scent of it. “You are a god among men.”

“If all godhood takes is a few stolen vegetables and a 200 year old recipe, then I’m a god several times over.”

She grins up at him. “I’d say trickster god, but there’s not enough malice in you.”

“Maybe it’s all seething below the surface.”

“Bullshit,” she says, sipping her soup. “Seething gods don’t make soup that tastes this good.”

“You know a lot of seething gods?”  
  
“Mostly vengeful ones,” she shrugs. “Point stands. This is delicious.”

“Passes the pre-war taste test?”  
  
She laughs. “My soup pre-war was almost always out of a can. Tomatoes were too expensive for us. So, yeah, I’d say it kicks the pre-war version’s ass.”

They finish off the pot, then make their way into Jenny’s fridge. The Gwinnett Ales are fizzy and cold, courtesy of the Rexford’s latest acquisition: a walking, talking microbrewery.

“Pre-War or Post?” He asks.

“Hmmm,” she muses, tipping her head back against the couch where they’re both sitting. “Post.”

“Prefer your beer with a little glow?”  
  
“There was a little glow in it before the war, too. Haven’t you noticed all of the dumping sites?”

“Yeah. About that: the hell were you people thinking?”

“Regulations are for the Reds,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Got to be a pretty popular lobbying slogan.”

“The papers never debunked it?”  
  
She shakes her head. “Wasn’t just criticizing the government that could turn suspicion against you. Go after one of the big corporations, and they’d find grounds for a libel case. Or invent them,” she adds after a moment. “Take Nuka World. Enough people out in Bradberton were reporting signs of early stage radiation sickness. Geieger counters were more active than they should have been. Every sign pointed to some kind of leak or partial meltdown, but anyone who broached the subject found themselves in court. Anyone who so much as spoke to the press was fired.” She pauses for a moment. “If there’s a radiation mess, nine times our of ten, it’s the people from my day you can thank.”

“What a legacy.”  
  
She snorts. “So much for leaving the world a better place for your children.”

“You think anyone ever believed in that? Sincerely, I mean.”  
  
Jenny shrugs. “I think so. Hell, I think some people do now. The world’s made a lot of progress since the bombs. Sure, it’s still a hellhole a lot of the time, but I’ve seen a lot of good things, even if they’re little.”

“That’s surprisingly rosy.”

“Gotta have _some_ hope. Besides,” she adds, wincing as she curls closer into the couch. “I had honest–to-god tomato soup for dinner. That’s plenty of reason to be rosy.”

“Ill-gotten tomato soup,” Deacon adds.  
  
“All the better.” She pauses, suddenly keenly aware of being clad in her bathrobe. “Be right back.”

She chalks it up to the alcohol. Alcohol and stress. She’s had too many long days too close to one another, she’s in pain, and she’s drinking. Sometimes, you end up giggling, and sometimes you end up afflicted with spontaneous bouts of self-consciousness. It has nothing to do with physical proximity.

“Back to our interrupted debauchery, then,” she says, descending the steps.

“Most people talk about debauchery after they’ve taken clothes off, not put them on.”

She shakes her head. “How conventional." 

\---

After her fourth beer, she stops noticing the pain in her side. She does notice, however, that Deacon’s sunglasses are sill perched firmly on his face, a fact that seems incongruous with the near darkness of her house.

“Why the shades?” She finally asks.

“Sensitive eyes. Too delicate for the harsh realities of the wasteland.”

“It’s dark, and the only rubble here is empty beer bottles.”

“Alas, my sensibilities.”

“Are they your tell?”

“My what?”  
  
“Are they the thing that would give you away? When you’re lying? Is that why you keep them covered?”

“I could tell you anything at this point, and you’d believe me.”

“Would not.”

“You’re slurring a little bit there. Come on,” he says, standing up. “Let’s get you to bed.”

“What time is it?”  
  
“Almost 1:30.”  
  
“You can’t leave this time of night.”  
  
“I’ll sleep on the couch.”  
  
She nods placated by the answer, and stands gingerly. The pain in her side flares up again and she grimaces.

“Come on,” Deacon says, wrapping an arm around her waist. “Let’s go.”


	6. Six

She’s jarred awake before the sun rises the next morning by a bright flash of light, and a roar like freight train. The world around her shakes, and an awful realization lands like lead in her stomach; she’s been through this before, been through the flash of light outside the windows, the distant roar, and the shaking of the house.

 _Bomb_.

Her heart begins to race, and she feels a swell of nausea grow in her stomach. She takes the stairs two at a time, to find her house guest still asleep on the couch. She takes a moment to fill two glasses of water from the faucet and grab the bottle of RadX she keeps on the ledge above the sink.

“Come on,” she says, rousing him. “Wake up. “  
  
Deacon’s sunglasses are askew, and he groans as he sits up. “Wha’s goin’ on?”  
  
“Here, take this,” she says, pressing a glass of water and a dose of RadX into his hands. “You can ask questions later.”

“Je---“  
  
“Pills first, questions later,” she says, downing her own dose.

His Geiger counter begins to tick more rapidly, confirming what she’s already suspected.

She pokes her head out the door, urging the men standing guard to come in, to get out of the direct path of the fallout. They brush her off, but accept the Rad-X and RadAway she offers.

“We should get downstairs for the next few hours,” she says, turning her attention back to Deacon. “Wait until some of this disperses.”

“The hell’s going on?” He asks, finally noticing the way the clicks keep coming faster.

“I don’t know how,” she says, beginning to usher him towards the basement. “But somehow, some idiot set off what had better be the last goddamn atom bomb in the Commonwealth.”

“They did it,” Deacon whispers, halfway down the stairs. “Sonofabitch, they did it.”

“Who? Did what?”

“The Institute’s gone.”

“What? What do you mean it’s gone?” She says, turning to face him. “How?”

“The plan was to go in, and blow the reactor. They did it.” There’s an awe to his voice, a reverence that she’s never heard before. “They killed the boogeyman.”

“You’re sure?” She asks. “Because that was one _hell_ of an irresponsible way to do it.”

He nods. “It was our best bet. Tom looked at other options. Minutemen’s guy did, too. At the end of the day, blowing the reactor was our single, best shot.”

“Let’s just hope everyone popped their RadX this morning,” she intones. 

“I thought you’d be more excited.”

Jenny’s shoulders droop. “Deacon … you have to remember: I lived through the bombs the first time. I know what they do. I’ve seen the whole dog and pony show. If the Institute’s really gone, it’s a huge victory; it guarantees the ‘Wealth has a future. We can all finally stop living in so much goddamn fear. It’s a coup, a miracle. Radiation’s just a steep price to pay for it.”

“Anything would have been worth it.”  
  
“I don’t disagree, I just …” She shrugs. “Ten mile radius is big. It’s Bunker and Diamond City. Maybe even Greygarden and Goodneighbor.”  
  
“What? You would have preferred we left them standing?” He asks, and he’d have to be an idiot not to notice the edge in his voice.

“No. No, not all,” she sighs, sinking against the wall. “I just wish the binary wasn’t so shitty. Either let the boogeyman live or unleash an extra whopping dose of radiation that people _really_ didn’t need.” She slides down, settling on the floor. “On a more personal level, it doesn’t exactly bring up the fondest memories, either.”

On the radio, Travis’s voice bursts to life, all raw nerves and rampant disbelief. His account is scattered, but it’s confirmation: the Institute is gone. She can hear the clicking of the station Geiger over his microphone as he manages to sputter out something about taking Rad-X, if you have it, and relaxes a little. Diamond City Radio is well-listened to; she hopes the message carries far enough.

Deacon slides down next to her, and pulls the sunglasses from his face. She’s only seen him without them a few times, and she forgets how much they obscure, how they soften the worry lines and mask the dark circles; those features are all front and center, bared in a way she’s not used to. He tips his head back against the concrete, and closes his eyes.

“What was it like?” He finally asks her.  
  
“The first time?” She pauses. “Sheer terror. We knew … well, we suspected … something was coming. The writing was on the wall. There was no way either side was walking it back. But nothing prepared us for the reality. New York got hit with the fucking anchorman on air. Obliterated on live tv.”  
  
“I heard from my folks on the HAM after Pennsylvania got hit, so I knew they were okay. Chicago…” She trails off. “Jesus, Chicago.”

She shakes her head. “The aftermath was horrible. Hospitals were swamped; there were missing posters all over; people were dying in the streets of radiation sickness. Most of the local crops were decimated, and the roads were too fucked to travel. People rioted at the supermarket, but that was pretty much business as usual.”

“The only time I set foot out of the house those first few weeks I saw a little girl with her skin falling off. Couldn’t have been more than six.” She shudders. “We made her as comfortable as we could. Her name was Caroline. She was sweet.”

“That why you took up doctoring?”

She shakes her head. “I got into medicine because I needed something to do. Emogene had men and trouble, but they were never enough. Jack and Edward had each other, and Jack had his research. I’m … I was a journalist. Seemed pretty useless in the face of some what I saw. Besides,” she says, splaying her legs out in front of her. “I had time to kill.”

“The little girl … what happened to her?”

Jenny takes a deep breath. “She was dead in a week. It was slow, and it was awful. Jack finally gave her an overdose of morphine. “ She can feel Deacon cringe next to her. “It seemed kinder.” Jenny brings her legs back up to her chest, and wraps her arms around them. “I think about her sometimes, about if there’s anything else we could have done.” She shakes her head. “But god bless the atom bomb.”

They sit in silence for what seems like an eternity, the radio carrying on in the background. 

“I thought it would be bigger,” Deacon volunteers.

“Blowing the Institute to high hell?”  
  
“Yeah,” he says. “I mean, it feels great. Bye bye ,boogeyman, synth liberation, an end to Institute fuckery. We finally made good on the deaths of so many: Switchboard, Augusta, Ticon. We can finally come out of the shadows a little.” 

“But…”  
  
“I thought it would be bigger.”  
  
“You mean, you thought you’d feel better.”

“Something like that.” 

Deacon rests a hand on her knee and she tips her head on to his shoulder. It’s weirdly close, weirdly intimate, especially by their standards. Her hands have been all over him, stitching cuts, patching wounds, but that’s all different. That’s professionalism. That’s doing her part. That’s not just standing by while a man bleeds out in front of her window.  
  
She’s been trying not to dwell on the past, not to let the ghosts out too often. She’s made a life for herself in this world, fractured as it may be. She has a home, friends, a business. The world ended, and she is still here. Lorenzo escaped Parsons, and she is still here. Now, the Institute is in ruins, and again, she is still here. She’s been given opportunities few could have ever had access to; it seems ungrateful not to acknowledge that, not to make the most of what she has --- especially when she has so much. 

But there’s a hollowness to it.  
  
She comes home, and most nights, the house is empty. She goes to work, and, most days, she doesn’t recognize the people passing by her stand. Everything blurs together.

It’s different, though, when Deacon’s around. She putters around and goes to work for a bit and comes home and, sometimes, Deacon’s there. They talk and sit around and drink and it’s all a little too comforting. This can’t last, and it won’t. He comes and goes as he needs; wherever his home base is, she doubts it’s much more than a mattress, storage, and a lock. She can’t imagine him ever settling into one role, one life, one place. It all seems so antithetical to who he is, how he presents.

 _He’s not Nick_ , she reminds herself. _This isn’t a house with a little picket fence in the suburbs. Don’t take what you have for granted; don’t rock the boat_.

“What now?” She asks, not really expecting an answer.

“Don’t know,” Deacon replies. “Depends on if Don meant what he said, or not.”

“Don?” She says, picking her head up. “ _That_ Don?”

Deacon nods.  
  
“You trusted _him_ to go in? After what he did?”

“ _I_ didn’t. Other people did.”

“How? Don’t they know?”

“He was our best bet.”

Jenny settles back on his shoulder. “It was a hell of a risk.”

“Still don’t know that it paid off.”

“Institute’s gone.”  
  
“We don’t know if he let _anyone_ out, synth or human, or if he just treated it like some rampaging revenge.” 

“That’s … a valid concern. Heard he shot the Director in the head.”  
  
“It was his kid.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“The Director was his kid. The vault Don crawled out of was some kind of cryo vault. His son was taken, and he got defrosted sometime later. Started looking for his kid, found the Minutemen, found us, found a way in, shot his son in the head.”

“Why?”  
  
“Don’t know. Might be surprised to hear we don’t talk much.”

“ _That_ I could see coming from the moment you walked into Cabot House with him all those months ago.”

“That obvious, huh?”  
  
“Telegraphed plain as day.”

Eventually, the clicking of the Geiger counter begins to slow somewhat, and the sun rises over the city and its newly minted crater. They emerge slowly from the basement, out into the watery sunlight beginning to filter through her windows.

“What’s next for you?” She asks.  
  
“Find out what actually happened, how much work we have ahead of us. You?”  
  
“Free RadAway for everyone today,” she sighs. “Try to get people covered. See if I can’t pay some of the caravaners to pass some out to folks in the immediate vicinity.”

“You think it’ll be that bad?”  
  
“I’m trying not to take any chances.”

Deacon gathers his satchel, and places his sunglasses resolutely on his face.  
  
“Hey,” she says. “I have a question.”

“Shoot.”

“What happens if I ask you to come back?”  
  
“Think that’s what I’ve been doing for the last ten years, whether you really wanted me to or not.”

“Meant longer term,” she offers. “I mean, it’s a little less risky now. I guess." 

Deacon’s face is inscrutable behind his sunglasses as he stands there, considering her.  
  
“Actually,” she says, blushing. “Sorry. Just … forget it. I --- it was nothing . A --- a whim --- a…”

He sets his satchel down, and motions for her to come closer.

Jenny picks at the cuticles of her thumbs, ready to launch into another apology when she realizes his lips are on hers, that one hand is cupping her cheek. And then there she is, up on her toes, kissing him back, on the first morning that the Commonwealth has ever woken up without fear of the Institute lingering over them all. When he finally breaks the kiss, she swears there’s the faintest hint of a smile on his lips.

“What does that…”  
  
“It means: Hi, words, I’m actions. And I’m speaking pretty loud right now.”  
  
“…Oh…”

“I’ll be back. May take a little bit, though.”

She nods, and walks him to the door.  
  
“Be safe,” she says, reflexively.  
  
“Lot easier today than last night.”

She showers, and gets dressed, and loads up her bag with supplies. She makes her way to Bunker Hill in a kind of pleasant daze, still unsure of what to make of the morning.

Deep down inside, there’s a spark of happiness, a kind of contentment that she doesn’t believe will really last, but that she’ll cherish while it does. It’s too good, too fragile, and their situation is still too precarious.

 _Don’t get your hopes up_.

\---

The marketplace is still quiet as she sets up shop, and she takes the opportunity to check in with those in the immediate vicinity and to begin compounding additional doses of RadX and RadAway. She pays a runner to head to Diamond City, and pay Travis to announce that supplies are available for those who need them. She convinces a trader headed to the settlements north of the ruins to pass on supplies to whomever she comes across, and another to carry RadX out towards Goodneighbor. 

When MacCready shows up later that morning, she’s compounding yet another batch.  
  
“You weren’t kidding about trouble,” he says, and she jumps.  
  
“Jesus,” she breathes. “Are you okay? How about Duncan?”  
  
MacCready nods. “It’ll be a cold day in hell before I let something happen to him. Gave him RadX this morning.”  
  
“And you?”  
  
“I’ll be fine.”  
  
“Take this,” she says, pressing a container into his hands.  
  
“Thanks, mom,” he drawls.  
  
“I’m not cleaning up after you if start vomiting from exposure." 

He grimaces. “Yeah, I’d like to avoid that, too.”

Once the middle of the afternoon hits, people begin to filter towards her booth in earnest. Eventually, she sets MacCready up taking orders while she compounds.  
  
“Can’t believe you’re not charging for this,” he says, during a brief lull.  
  
“Wouldn’t feel right. I mean, a bomb went off. That’s what started all of this in the first place. War profiteering just doesn’t sit well.”

“You’d be making a killing.”  
  
“I’m getting a guilt-free conscience instead.”

She’s lost track of how many batches she’s made by the end of the night. Darkness falls, and still, there are people waiting. She finishes helping them, then sets off for home.

\---

The next day is even busier, with more people filtering in from the explosion’s ten-mile radius. Again, MacCready takes the counter while she compounds. Though she wonders how she’ll ever be able to make enough, Jenny’s grateful to see so many people. Travis’s voice on the radio is still shaky, but now devoid of fear whenever the Institute comes up. Word begins to filter through of small parties being held, and the call goes out on Radio Freedom for those near and far to join in the celebration being planned.

She walks with a crowd that night, migrating towards Goodneighbor. They spill out from the Rexford and Third Rail, a massive street party. She finds Arcade in the throng, chuckling through the cigarette shoved in his mouth.

“This is madness,” he says, but his usual disapproval is absent from the statement. 

“When was the last time the little guy had a win like this?”  
  
“I’m not complaining.”

They eventually make their way back into the Rexford. Jenny flags down Drinking Buddy, and with it, an ice cold beer. She makes it halfway through the bottle before the giggles hit.

“You cannot be drunk off of half a beer, Jenny,” Arcade intones, eying her in disbelief over his glasses.

“I’m … not,” she laughs. “I’m just … I think it just hit me.”

“Yes, the alcohol apparently _did_ hit you.”  
  
“No … No … I mean. The Institute is gone. No more disappearances. No more wondering if you really know the people you think you know.” She pauses, consumed by laughter. “Maybe even an end to supermutants”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

“I’m sorry,” she says, drawing a breath, and running her hands through her hair. “When it went, all I could think about was the risk of radiation poisoning for the ten mile radius. I’ve been compounding radiation treatments for two days, and I just …”

“Finally got to celebrate a little?”

She nods.

“It was like that when the NCR pushed back Caesar, too,” he says, smiling. “We got so wrapped up handling the wounded from the surrounding areas that it took us all a few days to realize the implications of what happened.”  
  
“And when you finally did?”  
  
“It was a pretty damn good party.”

In the far back corner, a fist fight breaks out. Jenny raises her bottle in a toast. “God bless the Commonwealth.”

She pays one of the Neighborhood Watch to accompany her back that night, and almost collapses in the shower from happy exhaustion. Yes, she is tired and yes, her shoes reek of urine, and yes, she’ll need to double down on advertising Otto’s services to make up for the expense of compounding so much for free, but she feels good. She feels triumphant. She is still here, and she is not alone.

\---

She hums to herself as she gets ready the next morning, some nonsense tune without beginning or end. It’s the first time in she can’t remember how long, and she takes no small amount of joy in it.

Bunker is quieter that day, and Travis begins to focus on something other than the massive crater in the ground and its implications for life at large. Jenny notices that, already, things have begun to change. Stockton seems less fearful, less tense; by contrast, his three primary contractors all seem to be in foul moods, none worse than Cricket, a development Jenny notes with some curiosity, and no small amount of concern.

The traders and shoppers passing through are different, too. They talk more openly, and treat each other with a little less suspicion. Yes, there are still raiders and muties and radiation, but it’s hard not to notice the way the Institute’s destruction has cleared the air of fear and tension for so many.

Later that afternoon, as one of the other caravaners scans through radio stations, she realizes something else has been cleared as well: the classical station is nowhere to be found.

\--- 

She’s home only a few minutes when a knock sounds through her kitchen.  
  
She opens the door to find Deacon standing there, dressed as close to the nines as she’s ever seen him. “What? No passphrase?”  
  
“If you’re not you, then it’s invasion of the body snatchers. Still worrisome, but not the Institute.”

She steps aside to let him in. “You look fancy.”

“Went to have a chat with Hancock today.”  
  
“That’s not at all ominous.”

Deacon shakes his head. “The synths, along with a whole lot of Institute personnel, got out. Garvey made sure of it. Problem is, we can’t hold all the gen-3s and, even if we could, it’s not a solution. Getting them integrated is gonna be a whole other challenge.”

“I’m surprised they got out,” Jenny admits, rummaging through her cabinets. “More than surprised, actually.”

“Thank the General. He already knew that trusting Don wasn’t an option." 

“What happened to him, anyway?”  
  
“No one knows. Rumor has it he blew the Institute and headed on a one way trip for the Glowing Sea.”  
  
“Doesn’t seem like a very efficient way to kill yourself.”

“Radiation? No. A deathclaw? Sure.”  
  
She shrugs. “Fair. Blamco?”

“Blamco."

\---

That night, a radstorm rolls in, green and ominous. They chase the RadX with what, in Jenny’s opinion, might only passably be called vodka, and settle on the basement floor to wait it out, asking the kinds of questions they never would without a little liquid courage. The world is pleasantly fuzzy, and she finds she minds the vodka less with each sip.

“How long has it been since you went to bed with someone? Other than for work.”

Deacon tips his head back against the wall. “Long time. Ten years, maybe.” He knocks back another slug from the bottle. ”Same question.”

“Couple months before the bombs.”

“Hell of a dry spell.” 

“Losing Nick did a number on me.” She takes the bottle from his hand, and downs a shot. “’Sides, not sure if you’ve noticed, but I don’t get out much.”  
  
“Bullshit. You’re doing damn good business in Bunker Hill.”

“Call me old world, but I like to keep my profession and my pleasure separate.”

“There’s doctoring, and there’s playing doctor---“  
  
“And ne’er the twain shall meet. ”

Thunder cracks overhead. “What about you and work?” She asks.

He shrugs. “Happens less often than you’d think. I try to avoid it. Had a long term cover once that went to deep. Ended up with a kid.”

Jenny shifts to face him. “You’ve got a kid?”

“Yeah,” he nods. “She lives down in Capital Wasteland. One of the other agents brought her up. Her mother was too busy nursing a Daytripper habit to notice she was there most of the time, and well. It was safer that way. “

“She know?”

Deacon lets out a smile small. “As far as she knows, her dad’s got lots of friends who work the caravan lines. Those friends always have something for her. Notes. Letters. Toys when she was younger. Books and tools now that she’s older. “

“So, she knows she’s got a dad who loves her. “

“I hope so.”

“Think you’ll ever tell her?”  
  
He pauses for a moment, thoughtful. “It’s less risky, now, but … no. I’d rather not shatter whatever illusions she’s got about dear old dad.” He takes a slug from the bottle. “How’d you meet Nick?”  
  
She offers a small grin. “I’m almost embarrassed to tell you.”  
  
“Try me.”

“I was working on a story, and I was supposed to meet a source at this bar. Place with great jazz, but otherwise an absolute dive. I was tracking a councilman who I was pretty sure was siphoning off money --- which, sounds like nothing now, but was pretty big at the time.”  
  
“Anyway, he asked me for a light, we got talking, and not knowing he was a cop, I pretty promptly blew my cover. Outed myself right then and there as a reporter. Lucky for me, he was supposed to be meeting with the same guy. We got out of there before things went south.”

“I was twenty-two, fresh out of school, first big story,” she shakes her head. “Be gentle with me.”

Deacon laughs. “I’ve heard worse.”

“Probably never done worse, though.”  
  
“Having a kid wasn’t one of my shining moments.”

She shrugs. “Life happens. What about you? How’d you meet Barbara?”

“I was teaching,” he begins. “Down in Quincy. This was before the Gunners took it. We were really starting to get big, build a community. Eventually, we had enough kids that we needed a second teacher. That was where she came in.”

“She took over with the little ones. She was great with them: totally unfazed by anything they pulled out from their noses.”  
  
It’s Jenny’s turn to laugh.  
  
“And she was good. She was _really_ good. Kind of fell into place after that.”

“I know that story.”

“What about you? Quick engagement?”  
  
Jenny shakes her head. “That part took us the better part of nine years,” she says, offering him a sad smile. “But, we moved in together pretty quickly. He caught some flack from the higher-ups about it, but we weathered it.”

“He was older than you?”  
  
She nods. “Seven years.”  
  
“I can’t imagine you as the old world Piper Wright.”

She shakes her head. “It’s because you know me now, having aged with a good bit of cynicism. I was young and wild once.”

“Young, I believe. Wild, my ass.”

She takes a long drink from the bottle. “How’d you end up teaching?”  
  
Deacon sighs, and takes off his sunglasses. “That’s one hell of a question.”  
  
Jenny raises her eyebrows. “You don’t have to tell me. I know what it’s like to have those kinds of landmine … things.”

“No,” he says, pulling the bottle towards him. “You deserve to know.”

He takes a long drink, and puts his sunglasses back on. “I spent my youth as … scum, basically. Very violent scum. A bigot. I ran with a gang who got their kicks terrorizing suspected synths. Things got … out of hand. Ended in a lynching.” He shakes his head. “I got out. Changed my tune. Teaching seemed like the best way to atone for what I’d done.”

“’Course, it didn’t last. We moved outside of Quincy, started a little farm. Everything seemed to be going right. In the back of my head, I knew I didn’t deserve her. And then life proved me right. My old gang turned up. We didn’t know it, but my Barbara … she was a synth. It ended bloody … for her and them.”

“Jesus, Deacon,” Jenny breathes. “I’m so sorry.”

He shakes her off. “It’s how I ended up with the Railroad. They figured that, after losing my wife, I’d be sympathetic. So, in case you’re doing the math, yeah, I am a hypocrite.”

“Sorry,” he offers after a moment. “I should have told you … hell, a long time ago.”

Jenny’ shakes her head, but is quiet for a moment. “No. You’re not a hypocrite. You changed. You grew up. It’s different.”

Deacon gazes at her over the rim of his glasses, and she realizes his eyes are red. “You sound awful certain of that.  
  
She shrugs. “Choices matter. Who you were … shouldn’t define who you are. Which, yeah, I realize is easy for me to say. Less easy to believe.” She covers one of his hands with hers. “But I don’t think you’re a hypocrite.”

He knots her fingers with hers for a moment and gives them a quick squeeze, then reaches for the bottle again, taking another slug.

“If it makes you feel any better, I spent … the last few years of my relationship keeping Nick from going too far off the track. We saw some nasty things and, sometimes, there wasn’t anything he could do. But, lo and behold, after they exonerated the bastard who had’im killed, I was the one who walked right over the deep end.”

“Grief does that.”  
  
“So does spite,” she admits. “I just … I wanted to burn everything down. The Boston PD, the BADFTL, everyone. Nothing else mattered. Yes, the bombs were horrifying. Watching the aftermath was horrifying. The world burning was horrifying. But goddamn, if there wasn’t just a little bit of catharsis in that first explosion. Took me a long time to work through that. I’m still not proud of it.”

“You didn’t cause it.”

She looks at him.  
  
“I figured you know, but …”  
  
She nods. “You figured right.”

\---

Eventually, they stagger their way up the stairs, clinging to each other and the handrail. It’s the drunkest Jenny’s ever been, and she’s wondering how she let it get this far. They collapse in a heap on the couch, Jenny sprawled on top, with one of Deacon’s arms thrown over her back and the other pillowed behind his head. He tosses his glasses on the coffee table, and yanks the small blanket down over the two of them.

He’s up the next morning before she is, and she comes to with him rubbing soft, slow circles on her back.  
  
“Morning,” he offers, quietly.  
  
“G’morning,” she mumbles. “Why did we drink that much vodka?”  
  
“The same reason anyone drinks that much vodka." 

“Oh, right. Complementary baggage.”

She settles back down against his chest.  
  
“When do you have to be at Bunker?”  
  
“Don’t. Took the day off.”  
  
“Planning for a hangover?”  
  
“Nah, just,” she yawns. “Needed a day. Left them with supplies. They’ll come for me if they need me. You?” 

“Some point, I should go back. Catch everyone up on the news.”

She nods. “Otherwise they won’t let you out.”

“You are _so_ hungover.”

“Yes, yes, I am.”

They drift off again until midmorning.

“I’ll see you in a couple days,” he says when he finally leaves.

“Wait,” she says. “Hold on a minute.”  
  
She rummages in one of the kitchen cabinets, finally producing a key, which she presses into his hand.

“What’s this?” He asks.

“House key. With the Institute gone, well. It’s not a security thing, anymore.” She tells him. “The guards can handle any raider trouble you bring my way.”

“You’re awfully confident we’re not gonna see a rogue courser.”

“Well, if we do, we’ll have bigger problems than an extra key floating around.”

There’s a softness to his grin. “Really are tryin’ to keep me around, huh?”  
  
“Words. Actions. You know.”

She sees him to the door, and watches him disappear around then corner, then settles back into the comfortable darkness of her house.


	7. Seven

She washes the dishes, washes the clothes, and takes a shower. She drinks water, lots of water, and reminds herself that there is a reason she doesn’t drink hard liquor and this is it.

She lies in bed with the radio on and reads, grateful for the pause in the chaos. 

\---

The next day at Bunker, a familiar face appears: her tape-hunting trader friend and, with him, the remaining eight tapes. She pays him with the money she’s just received for Otto’s third surgery of the day, and he’s off.

She turns the sack of tapes over in her hands, feeling the weight, the realness of them. They are the key, the key to finding Eddie Winter, and metering out the justice that had been so sorely lacking those 200 years ago.

Her stomach is in knots.

 _This is what you wanted_ , she tells herself. _Now, you have it._

She shows them to Edward when he shows up later that afternoon.

“You sure you want to go down that path, J?”  
  
She grimaces. “I thought I did. Spent 200 years thinking I did.”

“But?”

She sighs. “But nothing. This is justice.”

Edward frowns at her. “You don’t have to play the executioner. That was never who you were. “

She shrugs. “It’s what Nick would have done for me.”

Edward contemplates this for a moment. “What’s your plan?”  
  
“Gotta get’em decoded first. Might be able to call on some folks in the Minutemen for that, but I have other options if that falls through. I’ll figure it from there.”

“When you get the code, I’ll go with you, if that’s what you want.”

Jenny nods. “Yeah. Yeah, I’d appreciate that a lot, actually.”

Edward offers her a single nod. “Just say the word." 

\---

That night, she packages the tapes off with one of her guards, and pays him to deliver them to General Garvey at the Castle, along with a note, asking if there’s anyone who might be able to crack the encryption. Two days later, one of the Minutemen scouts arrives at her door, bag of tapes in one hand, and a note in the other.

She invites him in, and hands him a glass of water while she opens the note. The code is there, plain as day, along with a friendly ‘Hope this helps!’ She dashes off a thank you note and sends the scout back out, along with a container of water for the road.

She makes the short walk to Cabot House, and knocks on the small window of Edward’s bedroom. It’s risky to say the least; she knows Edward has made progress in keeping Lorenzo knocked out, but she’s not quite sure when is and isn’t safe.

She’s in luck, though, and Edward opens the window, helping her in.  
  
“There’s a door, you know.”

“I was worried about Lorenzo.”

Edward shakes his head. “He’s pretty permanently subdued.”  
  
Jenny raises her eyebrows. “Hell of dosage required.”

“Tell me about it,” Edward groans. “But it means you can come and go as you please.”

Jenny grins. “Really?”  
  
He nods. “Really. I’m guessing you didn’t come here for that, though.”  
  
“I got the code,” she says, holding up a piece of paper.

“You sure you wanna do this?”  
  
She nods. “Yeah, I’m sure.” 

\---

The walk to Andrew Station feels like a funeral march. They’re accosted by a few stray raiders, but Edward makes short work of them. Getting past the gang at the front of the station proves more challenging, but they fall in time as well. Resistance inside is spotty, with newly minted gang members mixed in with old timers clad in salvaged power armor. They go through more Stimpaks then Jenny necessarily plans for, but she’s able to recoup their losses rooting through the remains.

“This is barbaric,” Edward says, watching her dig through the pockets of one of the corpses.  
  
“No point in leaving supplies to go to waste,” she says, pulling out a bottle of RadX. “Especially when people can use them.”

Finally, they’re standing at the keypad of Eddie’s hideaway. She reloads her gun, making sure all six shots are ready. Edward stands to the side, solemn and serious. “Are you positive about this?”  
  
She nods. “I’m gonna have to be.” Her hand shakes as he inputs the code. The door swings open, and there he is: Eddie Winter.

 “What the hell? Who the fuck are --- Argh!” She puts a bullet through his right shoulder, and then his left.

“Alright, lady!” He shouts. “I don’t know who the fuck---“  
  
“I’m surprised you don’t recognize me,” she says, stepping through the threshold into the light of the bunker. “You, of all people.”

She’s calm, much calmer than she’d imagined she’d be. She feels nothing, no fear, no rage, only a sort of emptiness.  
  
“You --- no. Can’t be. You’d have to be ---“  
  
“242, Mr. Winter. And I’d say I’m looking better than you.”

She takes aim and fires at his right knee cap and the ghoulified man shrieks in pain as he collapses on the floor.

“You crazy bitch! The hell do you think you’re doing?”

She kneels down next to him. “Look, Mr. Winter. You took something very precious from me. Two things, actually. And I’m going to return the favor.”

“He got what was comin’ to him,” the man spits. “Couldn’t mind his own fuckin’ business. Had to come pokin’ round ---Argh!“ He screams as Jenny stands and kicks the man’s wounded knee. “Shoulda listened. Taken you out too.”

She kneels down again. “Mr. Winter, threatening me won’t work. You---“  
  
“You wanna know what your fiancé’s last words were?”

She pauses.  
  
“So do I, but he was too busy chokin’ on the blood pourin’ out of his mo---“

She cracks the gun across the man’s face.

He’s laughing, even as the blood begins to run from his nose.

“Say goodbye, Mr. Winter,” she says, standing. “You won’t be missed.”

“Wait, what are you---“  
  
It’s a single clean shot to the head, and Eddie Winter is no more.

Edward’s at the door when she turns around, hand extended. “Come on, Jenny. We’re done here.”

She takes his hand, and climbs to the top of the steps, until they’re in the ruins of the old sandwich shop and then out into the sunlight.

And that’s when it all comes out.

She’s standing on the spot where Nick died, and she’s sobbing into Edward’s armor, and it might as well be 2077 all over again. She cries until she can’t, until she’s empty and exhausted. She cries for Nick, for their baby, for the life they might have had. She cries in frustration and disgust, both with the corpse down below and with herself. She cries because she is left, once and for all, with the concrete knowledge that nothing will fix it, that nothing will bring him back.

Edward stands quietly and holds her, occasionally pulling her hair back from her face.

\--- 

When she’s finally done, when she can’t cry anymore, he walks her home. 

\---

  
“Thank you,” she says, on the way back. “For coming with me. And for you help. And for still talking to me.”  
  
“You’ve been carrying that around 200 years, J. I had a good idea of what I was getting into when I let you in there.”

She takes a deep, shuddering breath. “I guess I didn’t. Not really, anyway.”

“Grief’s a motherfucker,” Edward finally offers.

“That’s … a goddamn understatement.”

 “You alright on your own?” He asks her outside her door.  
  
She nods. “Yeah. I’m gonna take a shower, maybe eat something. Try to think through, well, all of this.”  
  
“I’ll be by tomorrow night,” he tells her. “If you need me before then, the door’s always open.”

She throws her arms around him again, and he catches her weight. “Thank you,” she whispers.  
  
She waves as he walks back towards Cabot House, then heads back in, locking the door behind her. She sheds her shoes and her clothes into a pile, shrugs off her satchel, and sets her gun on the kitchen table.

She makes her way upstairs and into a piping hot shower, trying in vain to scrub off the day. She pulls on a pair of old pajamas and sits down at the table, gun in front of her.

She’s still sitting there when the door opens.

The light running along the underside of the cabinets throws a dim yellow glow on the countertops. The refrigerator hums along in the background, and water drips slowly from the faucet she keeps meaning to tighten. She assumes Deacon must have said something when he came in, but she can’t remember. He looks as spooked to find her sitting in the dark as she is to see him framed in the kitchen doorway.

“I killed Eddie Winter,” she says, plainly. “I made him suffer first. It wasn’t pretty.”

“Did it help?”  
  
“Does it ever?” Jenny shakes her head. “You think … you think that it’ll put an end to it, that you’ll close your eyes at night and you won’t see their face. You think it’ll make it easier. Justice and all that. But, it’s all bullshit. At the end of the day it’s just another dead body. What’s a little more blood and death to the Commonwealth?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know what I was expecting. Introspection? Remorse, maybe?” She brings a hand to her mouth, chewing on the skin of one of her knuckles. “Monsters never change. “ She pauses. “You know, he never stopped trying to intimidate me.” She rolls her eyes. “Whole time. Even when the bastard was lying on the ground with bullets in both kneecaps. He just … he wouldn’t quit. He thought for sure that he was gonna get something out of me. I mean … I guess he did.”

“I didn’t think I had that much violence in me. Guess I thought I was … better than that. What bullshit.” She pauses, chewing on her lip. “Nick would be so disappointed,” she says, suddenly fascinated with the table. “Hated any unnecessary use of force --- and you had to do something pretty extreme for him to label it necessary.” She traces a finger along the barrel of the revolver. “I wasn’t supposed to have gotten this.”

Deacon doesn’t say anything.

“Edward managed it. Don’t know how,” she admits. “All I know is that, when it came time for learning to shoot, and once he was fairly certain I wasn’t gonna do anything stupid with it, he sat me down at the table and there it was, lo and behold. It’s been my gun since.”

He settles in the seat next to her, in range of the firearm.

“He tried threatening me, at first. Eddie, I mean. Edward never would.” She shakes her head. “In any case, he tried threatening me. He puffed himself up and ruffled his feathers and started spewing words. Just words and words and words. Invective. I felt … I felt like telling him to do his worst. That, fuck, he’d already left me with a hole. How much worse could it be? A bullet wound? That’d be nothing.”

Deacon reaches for the gun, covering it with his hand.

“I mean, what’s worse? Dying would … hurt. Dying would be messy. But it’s short. There’s an end.”

He draws it towards him, pulling it into his lap.

“He didn’t even have the decency to look scared. He just looked angry. Do you know what that’s like? I bury the man who was, for all intents, my husband. I watch the world end. I wait 200 years. I track this bastard down. And he doesn’t have the decency to look scared. Even when he was bleeding out. Even when the blood was pouring out of his mouth. He never looked scared.”

He empties the bullets from the chamber, pocketing them before sliding the gun back in front of Jenny.

“I don’t know what I thought I would get. “

The silence presses down on them.

“We’re going after the Brotherhood,” Deacon says, finally.

“There’s children,” she says “On the Prydwen, I mean. They’ve got kids with’em.”

“Ah, fuck,” Deacon mutters. “Are you sure?”  
  
She nods. “I took care of one not that long ago.”

“And you’re sure it wasn’t a one off?”  
  
“She talked my guard’s ear off about her other friends, apparently. They’re all in training to go out and ‘purge the world of abominations!’ Think they’re on some kind of holy quest, like this is the newest fucking Crusade.”

“It’s the harshest I’ve heard you on the Brotherhood yet.”  
  
Jenny sighs. “Look, I don’t like the Brotherhood. I think they’re ignorant and small minded, that their hubris is the stuff great falls are made off, and their own stunning hypocrisy about the dangers of technology makes me want to feed myself to a mirelurk every time I hear it. But I’ve seen all that before. I know how that story ends, and spoiler, there’s a lot of blood and a lot of destruction and we live smack dab in the middle of its legacy. But bringing children into it,” she pauses. “Kids are the line. Kids don’t know any better. So, they’re stripped of their childhood and follow in the same fucked up cycle perpetuating it on and on ad infinitum. They never even have a shot.”

She presses the heels of her hands into her eyes. “War is a children’s crusade. Always has been. We drag the young off to fight for the old. It’s their blood that gets spilled. It’s their limbs that get blown off, and their heads that get filled with nightmares. It’s bad enough when that means your eighteen to twenty-two set, the ones who are just starting out in the world, who have had their childhood and are now faced with the terrifying question of _now what?_ But when you take it and you make it a _literal_ children’s crusade, when you involve ten-year-olds, it’s … There’s a line. A very very fine line. And willfully bringing children along when you expect combat pisses on it.”

Deacon fidgets with his lighter, but doesn’t respond.

“I’m not denying that the Brotherhood has to be stopped. I’m not denying that they’re a bunch of bigots with a hard-on for having more toys than anyone else and subjugating the average schmuck who’s just trying to eek by in the name of so-called law and order. I’m just asking you to make sure you’re pointing the guns at the right people … and not wantonly generating an awful lot of collateral.”

“And I know I’m a hypocrite. I know that I just turned Eddie Winter into collateral in my own personal crusade for justice. He had to die because I couldn’t kill the sonofabitch who let it happen. And I’m telling you,” she says, finally uncovering her eyes. “It doesn’t feel good. “

There’s silence between them.

“I didn’t always use a gun,” Deacon finally offers. “When I ran with the Claws, I was a fan of bats. Big heavy wooden ones. Was kind of our signature.” He pauses. “When they came after us, after Barbara, that’s what they used.”

Jenny grimaces.

“And when I went after them, well … I repaid them in kind. You ever consider the sound it makes when hardwood collides with the human skull? It’s this horrible, sickening crack. I killed all six of them. Left a scene that would have made a raider proud. You aren’t the first to have taken an eye for an eye.”  
  
“You ever regret it?”  
  
“No. You worried you’re going to?”  
  
“No, but I am worried what I’m gonna do to the next person who crosses me. Maybe I’m not that different from the raiders, after all.”

“Come on,” he says, motioning for her to get up. “I’m not letting you do this to yourself.”

She stands, and settles against his side, letting herself be led towards the couch.

“You eat?”  
  
She shakes her head.

“You have anything in the house?”  
  
Again, a head shake.

“Go get dressed. Let’s go get food.” 

\---

Diamond City is a long walk, one she’s usually loathe to take. Between their official stance on ghouls, and their direct competition with Bunker Hill, she’s come to avoid the Great Green Jewel of the Commonwealth. Still, she has to give the place credit: their outside security is impressive.

Minuteman flags flap in the evening breeze, and hang from shop fronts.   
  
“Place has really changed from the last time I was here,” she offers.   
  
Deacon nods, steering her towards Power Noodles. “Don’t worry: Upper Stands residents are still a bunch of pretentious SOBs.”

“It’s funny; they used to be cheap seats.”

“Cheap seats?”  
  
“Cheaper, anyway. I never knew anybody who could afford to go to a game.”

They eat quietly with Deacon finding ways to make small talk, and pointing things and people out. Jenny’s grateful for the distraction, and for the way his hand settles on her back as they walk around.

“What do you do?” She asks him once they’re back in the house. “Knowing that part of you is there, knowing what you’re capable of.”

They’re lying on the floor of the basement, staring up at the cracks in the ceiling.

“You have that many people you hate?”  
  
She shakes her head. “Just two, and at least one’s already dead.”

“The other one probably is too, by now.”  
  
“I hope a deathclaw got’im,” she announces. “Ripped his head off.”

Deacon turns to look at her over the rim of his sunglasses. “Yep. Vicious killer right next to me.” 

She rolls her eyes.

“Look,” he says. “You got dropped into the school of hard knocks. Far as veering off course goes, taking out a violent mob boss, even one who hasn’t been active since before the bombs, isn’t the worst.”

“Fair number of raiders, too.”  
  
“So, you cleaned house on some scum. Big deal.”

“I tortured the guy.”

“Yeah. Heard you also gave that merc, MacCready, something that made a hell of a difference for his kid. One bad day isn’t the defining moment.”

He tangles his fingers through hers and, for the first time, doesn’t pull away.

\--- 

They end up sleeping on the couch again. Jenny finds some comfort in the slow, steady rise and fall of his chest and drifts off shortly after he does.

In the morning, they eat breakfast, then he walks her and Otto most of the way to Bunker Hill before disappearing off into the ruins.

It feels good to be out among the people and the noise of the marketplace. A new batch of caravans has just arrived from Capital Wasteland, bearing ample scrap copper. There are grumblings of growing civilian unrest, ordinary people chafing under the Brotherhood’s control. Their DJ’s been pulled off air and forced to start broadcasting from a network of makeshift stations. She shakes her head, and hopes that it’s a sign the local contingent will take a hint and depart.

She’s not holding her breath, though.

It’s a quiet day for her, but a busy one for Otto. With more and more people filtering through the Hill, and with the recent price hike at the Mega Surgery Center, her investment continues to pay off. Already, his appointments have more than paid to refill her supplies drained by compounding.

She’s grateful for it. It leaves her time to think, time to process, without having to be alone for it. She knows there is an even keel, somewhere in the middle where the events of the day prior and the events of every other day in her life can coexist without driving her loopy trying to reconcile one with the other. She knows human nature is complex, that good and bad exist in everyone; she’s just not sure what to do having seen the emergence of her worst.

Good to his word, Edward stops by that afternoon.  
  
“You holding up alright?”  
  
She bites her lip. “I think in time, yeah.”

He nods.   
  
“How come … how come you never tried---“  
  
“To go after Don?”

She nods.

Edward thinks for a moment. “There were more important things: keeping you safe, dealing with Lorenzo, restaffing the house.” He lowers his voice. “Finding Jack’s notes on serum manufacturing.”

“But if those things hadn’t been there?”  
  
“In a heartbeat, I would’ve.”

“Won’t have to now,” she says.  
  
“You didn’t---“  
  
“No. God, no. I think … I think I’ve had enough of that to last the rest of my life, actually.”

“Good.”  
  
“But, I have it from a reliable source that, after he blew the Institute, he walked off into the Glowing Sea.”

“That would do it.”

“With the deathclaws, the radscorpions, and the radiation, I don’t think he survived too long.”

“No,” Edward says. “I doubt it.”

“It’s fitting, I think. Him doing himself in.”

The ghoul raises what should be his eyebrows.  
  
“You put that much violence out into the world, it’s gotta consume you sometime.” 

“You’re gettin’ awfully philosophical, Lands.”  
  
“What can I say? Old age.”

Edward smiles gently, and places a package on her lap.  
  
“Heck of a lot more than usual,” she says, picking it up.  
  
“He’s out cold most of the time. It’s a lot easier to get blood.”  
  
“And the serum?”  
  
“Took me a while to find Jack’s notes, but they’re good. Wasn’t hard to follow the directions.”

Jenny lets out a small laugh. “There’s some irony in a man who couldn’t follow a recipe writing good instructions.”

“That was Jack for you.”


	8. Eight

The rest of the week passes without event. With Lorenzo mostly neutralized, she spends more time back at Cabot House with Edward, and tending to the gardens. She carries home an armful of produce each time she leaves, and looks around happily one morning to see her kitchen so well-stocked.

She tries not to focus on much beyond the present moment. If her mind wanders too far, it inevitably turns to Eddie’s demise or Nick’s would-be disappointment; neither are comforting or even conducive to getting through her day.  
  
When the next batch of Capital Wasteland traders arrive, there’s more of them than there should be. Caravaners have spouses and children with them. They tell stories of sabotage operations against the Brotherhood, and a push to wrest control of the purifier from them, and return it to the scientists of Rivet City. People are frightened, and with the good news coming out of the Commonwealth, it seemed as good a place as any to lay low.

Jenny treats a few for minor radiation sickness, and finds her supply almost cleared out again from the ensuing rush to purchase more.

Kessler sends runners to the Castle and Goodneighbor, and both the General and the mayor are within the settlement’s walls before nightfall, figuring out how best to distribute the new arrivals.

MacCready looks shaken. “It wasn’t like this when I was a kid. The Brotherhood used to be the good guys. Kicking Three Dog off air … Jesus.”

“Three Dog?”  
  
“Capital Wasteland’s DJ. Definitely the coolest.”

“His name is _Three Dog_?”

MacCready shrugs. “Travis can barely get his name out of his mouth half the time.”  
  
Jenny nods in concession. “How long ago did you leave Capital Wasteland?“

“Almost seven years ago. I was sixteen when I left Lamplight.”

Jenny blinks at him. “Wait. You’re twenty-three?”

“Almost.”

“Oh god,” Jenny groans. “I’m old.” 

\---

She and Deacon sit on her small balcony that night, munching on produce from the Cabot gardens, and enjoying the early spring air

“My hired gun is twenty-three. Twenty. Three. He’s practically a baby.”

“Jenny,” Deacon says, popping a cherry tomato into his mouth. “Compared to you, most people are babies.”

She sighs at him in mock offense. “Not everyone! Just the twenty-five-and-under crowd.”

“I wasn’t much older than that when you met me.”  
  
“You were still in the adulthood threshold.”

“How’d you come up with that as a threshold?”  
  
“I’ve been thirty-two for two plus centuries, and I’ve had a lot of time to reflect. Twenty-five was when I stopped feeling like a teenager with a drinking permit, a job, and a boyfriend, and when I started feeling like a bonafide adult with a taste for alcohol, a profession, and a partner.”

“What caused the switch?”

“You wanna know?” She says, quirking her eyebrows at him.  
  
“Try me.”  
  
“I got a promotion, I’d been living with Nick for just about two years, and I’d finally learned to drink things that weren’t beer.”

“Took you that long, huh?”

She nods. “I was a slow bloomer when it came to booze.”

“I can confidently say you’ve made up for it now.” 

She laughs. “Yeah, I’d say so. Oh, other bit of news: we had an influx of Capital Wastelanders around Bunker.”

“Heard rumblings Hancock and Garvey went to take the pressure off.”

She nods. “Something’s afoot with the Brotherhood and some kind of resistance down there.”

“You don’t say,” Deacon offers, mildly.

“Figured your people had something to do with it.” 

He just raises his eyebrows at her.

“Anyway, there’s talk of them trying to get the purifier handed back to Rivet City.”

“Who should have had it all along.”  
  
“Not that you have strong feelings on the matter.”  
  
“Who, me? Nah. Meek as a lamb.”

She shakes her head. “Incorrigible.”

“Told Garvey it might get worse before it gets better,” he offers after a moment. “I’m telling you, too.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“Because there might be a lot of people needing a doctor soon.” 

\---

Deacon’s warning holds true. The next week sees even more Capital Wasteland refugees steaming in with the caravans. They tell stories of Brotherhood soldiers clad in Power Armor seizing farms and crops, citing a need to quell the unrest and better support efforts in the Commonwealth.  
  
There’s ghouls this time, too, flooding north with rumblings of the Brotherhood taking the Museum of Natural History. Some head towards Goodneighbor, while others wait for news on caravan employment, and others still venture towards The Slog, hedging their bets on a ghoul-friendly settlement for safe haven.

“Jesus,” MacCready says, watching the new arrivals. “Hope Lamplight holds.”

“Where you grew up?”  
  
“Yeah. Wouldn’t be worth much to the Brotherhood. Bunch of kids living in old caves.”

“Where are the adults?”  
  
“No mungos allowed,” he says, almost reflexively.

“You grew up without any sort of adult supervision?”  
  
“I was the mayor. I _was_ the adult.”

She shakes her head. “Wasn’t it kind of _Lord of the Flies_ growing up like that?”

“What?” MacCready asks.  
  
She shakes her head. “Never mind. Wasn’t it hard to sustain yourselves?”

“Sometimes. We got by alright, though. Our big worry was always the muties.” 

Jenny shudders. “Hence, living in a cave.”

He nods. “With barricades.” MacCready pauses. “Guess it’s Big Town I should be worried for.”

“Big Town?”  
  
“Where we kicked everyone out to when they turned sixteen. Some of the others are probably still there.”

“See anyone you know?”

“Not yet. Probably a just matter of time.”

\---  
  
Most of the patients she sees are either refugees, or wastelanders from the ten mile zone needing a system flush. It changes the character of her booth, of Bunker Hill at large. Sure, they say they welcome everyone, but it doesn’t mean they’re actually prepared to follow through on that.

Vertibirds become a more common sight in the skies, and not just by the airport. Jenny has no idea what they’re looking for, what they’re hoping to get, but she maintains a kind of low grade caution.

Even so, she’s surprised when a Power Armor-clad soldier shows up at her door.

“Requisitions, ma’am,” he says. “I’ll need you to turn over any medical supplies you have.”

“Beg pardon?” She asks, her eyes growing wide.

“Medical supplies. You _do_ run the clinic in Bunker Hill, don’t you?”  
  
She steps outside, shutting the door behind her. “Yes, I run the clinic,” she begins. “But I’m sorry. I’m afraid I don’t have any supplies to give you. I have some MedX, but with the influx of immigrants from Capital Wasteland and the continued effects of the fallout on the local population, I’ve bee running on damn near empty most days. I don’t even have compounding supplies on hand.”

The soldier frowns. “That seems like an inefficient way to run a clinic.”

“Considering my shipments that should have arrived already from Capital Wasteland haven’t, and I sent my guard out to go shopping, I assure you that it is.”

“Ahh,” the man says, softening somewhat. “Our supply chains have also been plagued.”

“Hence the requisition?”  
  
“Affirmative.”

She nods. “If you’ll excuse me a moment, I’ll go get that MedX.”

“Your cooperation is appreciated, civilian.”

She bites back the urge to correct him, inform him that it’s _doctor_ , then remembers she lacks the actual degrees to lay claim to the title.

Instead, she offers him a tight smile, and retreats back inside the house, pulling the vials inside her medicine cabinet. She takes a moment to hide the serum vials, still wrapped in their packaging, in her laundry hamper.

She returns to the solider, and presents him with the MedX.  
  
“Thank you, civilian,” he says, taking them from her. “Can we count on your assistance in the future?”  
  
“I help those who come to me,” she says. “That’s all that matters in my book.”  
  
Satisfied, the soldier bids her a good evening and walks off.  
  
She lets out a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding, and sinks back against her door.

“You mean what you said to him?” The guard on duty, a ghoul, asks.

“Don’t expect me to go cheering them on. I think they’re a bunch of creeps, but I also know when not to pick a fight.”

He seems reassured by her statement. “Was worried you were switching sides on us.”  
  
She shakes her head. “I just need to get some things in order before I can handle those sorts of things differently.”

\---

Deacon’s jaw tigthens as she relays the story to him that night.

“Not for nothing, but you might want to get your robot assistant out of here for a while.”

“You think they’ll come for Otto?”

“Functioning old world tech that only a few people on this coast have? Yeah, I think you’re gonna pique their interest.”  
  
“Fuck,” she mutters. “I was worried that’s what you were gonna say.”

“You have any leads on a hiding spot?”  
  
“Cabot House.”

“Is that really safe?” He asks. “I seem to remember something about its current resident being a homicidal lunatic.”

“Safe enough. Edward keeps Lorenzo sedated, but god knows how,” she adds. “I’m not worried about it being secure, but I _am_ worried about dragging Edward into a spot if I get noticed moving Otto.”  
  
“Could make him look non-functional.”

“You think it would work?”

“I think it would give you both plausible deniability.”

Jenny chews on her bottom lip. “It’s probably our best shot.”

“If they know where you are, and where you work, it’s only a matter of time before they come for him. Especially if they ever listen to Diamond City Radio. Or hear the stories around Bunker.”

Jenny groans. “It still leaves one massive vulnerability, though.”

Deacon raises his eyebrows.  
  
“They can’t get their hands on the serum.”

“How much do you have on hand?”  
  
“Fair bit. Used to be we had to produce for more than one person, so Jack’s calculations are all done with for that multiple person load. One batch yields four doses. Edward makes them with some regularity as a precaution.”

“So…?”  
  
“At least sixteen doses. It’s been a while since I counted.”  
  
Deacon lets out a long, low whistle.  
  
“Keeping that well hidden is priority number one once Otto’s out.”  
  
“How many people know about it?”

“You. Edward. MacCready knows I gave his son some mystery vial, but he doesn’t know what it was. So, just you, really.”

“Good. We’ve got some time then.”

She runs a hand through her hair. “Don’t suppose you have any good news?”  
  
“One of the new ghouls up at the Slog used to be a vintner before the war. Talk is he’s trying to make tarberry wine.”

“Really?”

“I trust my source.”

“Some days,” she says, settling into her chair. “I love the Commonwealth.” 

\---

She sends a runner to Diamond City the next morning with instructions for Travis to put the add on the kibosh, but with an offer to keep paying him for the spot.

In the evening, she makes her way to Cabot House on the way home from work. Security’s been ramped up, a whole cast of new faces. They stare suspiciously as she fumbles with her key in the lock before getting it to turn.

Edward is leaning out the kitchen window, smoking a cigarette, when she enters knocking on the doorway. “Hi, stranger.”

He stubs out the cigarette in the nearby ashtray. “What’s cookin’, J?”

“I need a favor.”  
  
“Shoot.”  
  
“I need to hide my Auto Doc in the basement.”

Edward’s brow furrows. “Something happen?”  
  
“Had a Brotherhood soldier show up last night to ‘requisition’ some medical supplies. Think it’s a matter of time before they show up for Otto.”

He nods. “Not a problem. You gonna need help moving him?”

“Yeah. Plan is to make him look non-functional. Try to draw as little attention as possible.”

“Makes sense.”

“Edward,” Jenny starts. “I know I shouldn’t ask, but why all the new help?” 

“Not everyone coming out of DC is exactly farmer material. The house has the caps to spare. Didn’t seem right not to do something to help. Besides, if we’re gonna get your robot moved, we could use the extra hands.”  
“What’re your thoughts on when to move it?”  
  
“The sooner, the better.”  
  
“Tonight?”  
  
“Probably not a bad choice.”

She follows him out of the house, tailing behind as he drafts some of his men from outside. They seem curious now, intrigued by her, rather than suspicious.

“How’d you end up in with Edward, smoothskin?” One of them asks on the walk.  
  
“We go back a long time,” she offers. “He’s gotten me out of some real scrapes.” Telling half-truths has become much easier with practice, she notes to herself.

“Including this one?”

‘This isn’t even the biggest one.”

She rolls Otto out the door and into the night air. Edward’s men create a makeshift harness, allowing for two to pull, while the remainder keep watch.

They form a strange parade along the debris lined streets and alleyways: five ghouls, one human, and a seemingly broken robot. _Sounds like the opening to a bad joke_ , Jenny thinks.

Once, they hear a vertibird over head, but can’t spot it. Edward directs them all into the shadow of a building until they’re certain they’ve escaped its notice.

The last few hundred yards across the green to the house are a relief. They’ve made it. Otto is safe. She thanks the men profusely, grateful beyond words for their help.

“They’re good people,” she mentions to Edward as he walks her back.

“They’re hard workers, and they seem to be trustworthy thus far.”

“They know anything?” She asks.

“Edward shakes his head. “Only that it’s an old pre-war house still being well taken care of. It’s easier that way.”

Jenny nods. “Much.”

“What’s your plan if the Brotherhood shows up looing for him?”

“Officially, I sold him to some trader headed west. Private deal. Brokered very last minute.”

“Think they’ll fall for that?”  
  
“I’m gonna have to hope so. Thanks for saving my ass again, by the way.”

“You know what they say: old habits die hard.”

At the house, she hands Edward a wrapped parcel full of caps. “For your men,” she offers. “To say thank you.”

“Never change, Lands,” he says, taking the package.

“Should take your own advice. Night, Edward.”

“Night, Jenny.” 

\---

She grabs MacCready early the next morning, before the crowds begin to filter in in earnest.  
  
“Look, if anyone asks, I sold Otto, alright? Scruffy looking guy headed back out west made me a good offer, and I took it.”  
  
“Boss,” the man begins. “The heck’s going on?”  
  
“I’d prefer my investment not to be ‘requisitioned.’”

A smirk spreads across MacCready’s face. “Slick.”

She shakes her head. “Desperate.”

“Explains why you sent the runner yesterday.”  
  
“I was wondering when you were gonna ask about that.”

“Eh, figured you didn’t want it broadcast.”

“Good man.”

She spends the morning buying supplies and compounding in an effort to replenish her stash and get out in front of the next wave of Capital Wasteland caravans.

By the afternoon, she’s out of materials and unwilling to make the trip to Diamond City to acquire them. She hopes that some scavver will come in, and unload, putting her back in business without the added trouble of travel. Both Stockton and Deb promise to put anything useful they get aside for her.

In the meantime, she amuses herself with menial tasks. She yanks a splinter from a passing caravaner’s hand, and helps distract a brahmin while someone clips its hooves.

Eventually, Stockton flags her over, a bevy of supplies littering his counter. As she begins to pick through, he begins to talk quietly.

“We have a former package coming back to the warehouse,” he says. “This time as a factory worker.”

Jenny doesn’t pick up her head. “Interesting choice.”

“Refused refinishing. Wants to learn the world on her own.”  
  
She flips through one of the books on the table: entirely irrelevant to her stated shopping purpose, but tempting nonetheless. “Why tell me?”  
  
“I’ll be taking her on. I would appreciate your assistance in maintaining appearances.”

 “You’re concerned someone will realize something’s off about the goods.”

“Precisely.”

“I’ll help on fulfillment however I can.”

The old man nods, satisfied by the answer.

\---  
  
As far as anyone knows, Edie is some long lost niece of Stockton’s, a Bar Harbor native, dry docked on the mainland. She’s quick to make change, and has learned to keep the shock from her voice when caravaners and Bunker natives stop to make conversation.

Her eyes still bug when MacCready asks her out for a drink one beautiful April afternoon, but she still manages to stammer out a yes.

Jenny’s hardly surprised when Stockton asks to speak with her privately.

Edie is fidgeting nervously just behind the market, wringing her hands.

“What do I do?” She hisses.  
  
“On a date? You go out, and drink beer, and get to know one another.”

“No, not that.”  
  
“What then?”  
  
“What do I do if he finds out?”

Jenny’s eyes flick from side to side. “You know your cover. Besides, he’s---.”

Edie stares blankly back at her.

Jenny’s shoulders droop. “You know --- never mind. Look,” she offers. “The only way he’ll know is if you tell him. And that’s your choice.”

“ _Do_ I tell him?”  
  
“I…” Jenny wrinkles her nose, trying to guess the mercenary’s reaction. “I can’t tell you. I think anyone in your position would be asking themselves the same question.”

Edie stares back at her, obviously looking for a more concrete direction.  
  
Jenny digs the heels of her hands into her eyes. “I mean, probably? Probably sooner rather than later? “ She shakes her head. “Just .. Look, I am not the best at moral conundrums. Let me poke a little bit, alright?”  
  
Edie nods at her.

Preston’s on the radio later that afternoon, discussing the next steps forward. He’s steady and confident, an easy grace to his reassurances. Jenny can’t say the same for Travis, but he’s doing his best.

  
“What … uh … what do we do about … you know … the synths?”

“The Institute survivors, synthetic or human, need our help. From what we learned, most have never been up to the surface. They’ve lost the only home they’ve ever had. The synths are living for the first time as free people, not slaves. I know it’s hard. I know there’s bad blood. But if we want to move forward, we have to come together.”

“Bullshit,” MacCready mutters. Jenny’s stomach twitches.

“What’re you griping about?”  
  
“The synths. They were a danger then, they’re a danger now.”

Jenny eyes him over her sunglasses. “You realize we’ve probably treated synths before, right? Traded with’em? Whole nine yards?”

“And we’re lucky they haven’t turned on us.”  
  
“You heard the General. Most of them never had any say in the matter.”

“What about the ones that did?”

“Mac, not to split hairs,” Jenny begins. “But I seem to remember you being a hired gun. That, you know, generally involves its own … questionable activities.”

“That’s survival.”

Jenny shrugs. “Might have been for them, too. Used to be there were stories about synths escaping. People don’t do that if they’re okay with what they’re being asked to do. Can’t imagine you left the Gunners because you _wanted_ to piss them off.”

“How do you know you can _trust_ them though? That they won’t just flip a switch, and start shooting?”  
  
“You think that didn’t cross my mind when I hired you?”

MacCready is sullen. “I don’t like’em.”  
  
“Meet a few first, then tell me what you think." 

She catches Edie later, under the pretense of setting up a special order.  
  
“He’s scared,” she offers. “A lot of people are. They don’t understand what it was like. They’ve only seen the destruction the Institute caused.”

“Do you think I should get out of it?”

Jenny shrugs. “That’s really up to you. If you need a scapegoat, you can scapegoat me.”

Edie nods, and thanks her, telling her she’ll have to think about it.

\---

“Why are we here?” Arcade asks, sliding into the seat across from her.  
  
“Because I’m … pre-empting trouble.”  
  
“Oh. Good.”

Time has dulled her finesse somewhat, but she can still run a good tail. She’d found out from MacCready where he was taking Edie, and closed shop early to beat him to the venue. She’d grabbed Arcade as an excuse _\--- hard to accuse your boss of following you if she’s there with someone_ , Jenny reasons.

She ducks her head and studies the table as she hears Mac’s voice from the door.

“Just what kind of trouble are you pre-empting?”

“My guard’s on a date with a synth who he doesn’t know is a synth.”

“How do _you_ know she’s a synth?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“And you’re expecting trouble because---“  
  
“He’s not the most open minded.”

“I see. And you let this happen because ---“

“Because my social graces are _rusty_ , and outing people is _rude_.”

Arcade nods, quietly incredulous. “Did you put _any_ forethought into this?”

“I grabbed you, didn’t I?”  
  
“I don’t know what good you think that will do.”  
  
“You’re 6’2” and you have a plasma pistol. People take you seriously.”

“You have a .44.”

“And don’t quite break 5’7. If I have to cover her getting out on my own, it’s not gonna happen.”

“I’m a doctor; not a meat shield.”

“Just shout some Latin at people. See if that works.”

Arcade glowers at her. “Let’s just hope you come up with something better if we need it.”

“Let’s just hope we don’t.”

She sends Arcade to the bar with caps to order beers, and settles into the booth, watching MacCready and Edie from a distance. Even from the distance, she can spot how unsure Edie is, what a loss she finds herself at. Silently, she asks for the universe to have a little mercy on the girl.

“Inconspicuous,” a voice says, and she jumps. Arcade shakes his head, and hands her a bottle. “Really, very subtle.”

“What bug crawled up your ass?”

He sighs. “I had the Brotherhood show up today.”  
  
“For supplies, or your students?”  
  
“For me.”

“…What?”

Arcade settles heavy into his seat. “Sins of the father.”

Jenny stares expectantly, but Arcade chooses not to oblige her curiosity. She fights the urge to prod him for more information.

She remembers, with a pang, networked story morgues and the ease of picking up the phone to place a request. Curiosity had been much easier to satisfy way back when.

 _Snooping_ , she corrects herself _Snooping was easier_.

She’s roused from her thoughts by Arcade’s quiet “Lands,” drawing her attention to the scene playing out at the bar. Edie focuses on her hands, worrying at her cuticles. Mac’s features are drawn. The tension reads even from their far off vantage point.

“Oh, boy,” Jenny groans. “Here we go.”

But nothing happens. MacCready downs his beer, and gestures for another. Edie stares at him expectantly. After another gulp, the conversation continues. Jenny relaxes back into her seat, the immediate danger have passed. HE is still obviously tense; she’s still clearly nervous. But they keep talking. 

“Looks like you’re spared,” Arcade offers.

“Looks like we all are.”

\---

Mac is puffing away on a cigarette when she gets to work the next morning,

“Will you knock that off?” Jenny groans, waving away the smoke. “Isn’t the radiation carcinogenic enough for you?”  
  
He eyes her, but obliges, grinding it out under his heel. “Stockton’s girl, Edie. She’s a synth.”

“Okay,” Jenny offers in what she hopes is a neutral tone of voice. “How do you know?”

“She told me. When we went out last night.”

“Okay,” Jenny offers again. “I see you survived.”  
  
“She should’ve told me.”  
  
“She _did_ ,” she says gently. “Can’t blame her for not wanting to announce it here with god knows who listening. Besides,” she adds, unpacking her bag for the day. “Took her some guts to tell you.”

MacCready glowers. “Whose side are you on?”

“Common sense and compassion.”  
  
“She’s a synth!”

“You kill people for money! Only you had a choice in the matter.”

MacCready doesn’t respond.

“Did she tell you anything about what she did?”  
  
“She was a test subject for one of their doctors.”

“Lovely,” Jenny intones.  
  
“She said she hated it, got out of there as soon as she could.”  
  
“Guess there’s some truth to those stories about the Railroad.”

“Why, though?”

“Why what?”  
  
“Why risk your life for something that might kill you?”  
  
“Some _one_ ,” Jenny corrects.

“Why do it?”  
  
“Why’d you ask her out?”  
  
“I didn’t know she was a ---“

“Ignore that for a minute.” 

MacCready considers the question. “She was pretty. And she reminded me of … someone I lost.”

“Have those things changed? And, ‘she’s a synth’ is not a response. She was a synth before she outed herself.”

“No,” he offers sullenly.

“Then maybe there’s more to her than that.”


	9. Nine

The reports from DC grow worse with each caravan. Arrests, interrogations, and imprisonments met with sabotages, shootings, and at least one attempted bombing. Rivet City under occupation. The supermutant population running unchecked. The ones who can leave are; the ones who can’t flock to Megaton.

It takes Jenny a minute to realize where she’s heard the name before, but eventually, it dawns on her. _Moira. Moira Brown of Megaton. With the Arlington Library tapes_.

She asks one of the travelers as she bandages his foot, bitten by a molerat.

“No one knows where she is,” the man replies. “She shuttered shop once the Brotherhood started looking for her.”

Jenny’s brow wrinkles. “Why would the Brotherhood be looking for her?”

“Accused her of hoarding tech. Most of us think it’s because she rigged up Three Dog’s portable transmitter.”

“They’re arresting people for _hoarding tech_?”  
  
“Lady, they’re arresting people for anything.”  
  
She thinks of Otto, stashed in the Cabot House basement, nestled away with the fruits and plants of the world that was, and can’t help but gnaw at her lip. She tells herself that they were well-hidden, that there was no way the vertibird could have seen them in the shadows of the buildings, and that no one involved would have said anything.

It does not comfort her.

She is, however, if not comforted, then at least intrigued by her guard’s behavior. He is wary, at first, hand never far from the pistol concealed under his jacket, but he keeps talking to Edie. It’s never for long, and never without witnesses, but it’s something.

First, it’s five minutes.

Then, ten.

Then, slowly, lunch.

“You’re keeping a hell of an eye on those two,” Edward offers quietly one afternoon.

“She’s still new,” Jenny answers, biting into an apple.

“New?”

“Not much experience with this.”

“And you’re worried.”

“Like you wouldn’t be if I ever dated again.”

Edward eyes her. “You’re different.”

Jenny takes another bite of the apple in lieu of pressing the point.

“So, you don’t trust your help.”

“I trust the help that I didn’t hire out of a bar in Goodneighbor.”

Edward grimaces.

Briefly, Jenny considers coming clean, telling him the truth. _Of course I’m worried. She’s a synth and he asked her out without knowing and wasn’t too happy when she told him. If he blows her cover, I’m gonna have to step in and that’s gonna end poorly._

She decides Edward would rather not know, and settles for a simpler explanation. “She’s Stockton’s niece, and she’s still practically a kid when it comes to this. Him? He’s _got_ a kid.”

Edward snorts. “Is he even old enough to have one?”

Jenny laughs and rolls her eyes. “He’s twenty-three. They don’t all come out big, strapping men like you.”

He shakes his head good-naturedly. “Dinner Sunday?”

She nods. “I’ll be there.”

\---

Cabot House is bustling, filled with life in ways it never was before. The ghosts of Jack, Emogene, and Wilhelmina still hang heavy in the space, but there is joy, too. All in all, there are fifteen of them at the table. It’s not just Edward’s men, either. Their families, biological and makeshift, have joined them. 

They crowd onto the sofas and around the coffee table in the living room, the sound of chatter mixing with the radio to fill the air with a comforting buzz. Edward surveys it all, looking almost at peace.

She spends most of the meal chatting with a woman named Felicity, another Pre-War. She’d been in DC on her honeymoon when the bombs fell. She and her husband, James, had both ghoulified in the aftermath.

“We came north when the Brotherhood started getting too interested in Underworld.”

“Jesus,” Jenny groans. “That’s awful.”

Felicity shakes her head. “Could have been worse. They could have come knocking with Liberty Prime.”

“Liberty Prime?” She asks incredulously. “That _money pit_ they were trying to get to Anchorage?”

“One and the same. They used it to help knock out the Enclave years ago. It took a hell of a beating in the process.”

“Like ---?”

“Like blown to pieces.”

“So, it wasn’t a worry, then.”  
  
Felicity shrugs. “Depends on who you believe. There’s been rumors they’ve ben repairing it, scrounging for parts and tech. It’s why they built that stupid airship and came north.”

Jenny furrows her brow. “What would they even come here for? Why not go west? They didn’t get hit nearly as hard as we did.”

“Now, there’s the real question.”

Jenny’s stomach twists. _If they’re looking for something, there’s no way in hell we’re getting rid of them until they find it._

She pulls her jacket tight around her as she walks home after dinner, wracking her brain for what might make the Commonwealth so interesting. Yes, there had been the Institute, but any tech that might have been recovered went up in a fireball with the rest of the facility after the Minuteman’s tech guy had yanked all of the information on it that he could manage off of the mainframe. What the hell did that leave? Rusted razors? Mutated seafood? Baseball bats?

None of it made sense.

“Your friend’s in,” the guard on duty tells her. “Didn’t want you spooked.”  
  
“Thanks, Jim,” she says, leaning against the door.

“Oh,” he adds. “Brotherhood was around again.”

Jenny heaves a sigh. “They give you any trouble?”  
  
“Nothing we couldn’t deal with.”

She nods. “I appreciate it.”

The man nods.

Deacon’s sprawled across the couch, book in hand, toes poking out from socks in dire need of darning. She can’t make out the book’s title, but she’s pretty sure it’s a Silver Shroud anthology.

“Kent’s broadcasts got you all riled up?”

“The Shroud’s nothing special, but that Mistress of Mystery? She’s something else.”

Jenny shakes her head, then flops down in to the overstuffed chair nearby. “What’d you know about Liberty Prime?” It’s hardly subtle, but she’s not in the mood to dance around the question.

Deacon freezes, then sets the book aside, and pulls himself into a sitting position. “Could ask you the same.”

Jenny cocks her head. It’s a bigger response than she’d expected. “Currently, or historically?”

“Both.”

“US government proposed it to liberate Anchorage. Cost an arm and a leg and a whole lot of blood to build. Never used. Apparently, Brotherhood got hold of it a while ago, used it against the Enclave in DC. Got pretty beaten up in the process. Rumor is Brotherhood’s here looking for something to repair it.”

He’s quiet for a moment. “How’d you hear this?”

“Cabot House. I was talking to one of the ghouls who came north.”

Deacon scrubs a hand over his face. “Shit.”

“So, it’s true,” Jenny says, knowing better than to expect confirmation.

“Before the Brotherhood lost its mind, it did some real good in Capital Wasteland. It’d would’ve been a hell of a lot harder to take back the purifier without their help, and Liberty Prime played a big part in that.”

“But, turn it against civilians and it’d be a bloodbath.”

“Exactly.”

Jenny chews on her lip. “It’s just one fucking thing after another, huh?”

Deacon lets out a short laugh, but there’s no humor behind it. “Welcome to the ‘Wealth.”

\---

MacCready is already at Stockton’s stall, talking to Edie when Jenny gets there the next morning. The sight of a smile playing at his lips is enough to render Jenny blind to the Brotherhood scribe deep in conversation with Kessler.

By the time she notices, the scribe is walking towards her booth. _Fuck_ , she thinks.

“Ms. Lands?” The man asks. Jenny fights back the urge to correct him. _Actually, it’s_ Doctor _Lands._ She bites her tongue instead. _No letters, no title,_ she reminds herself.

“Can I help you?” She asks, keeping her voice bright and even.

“You had in your possession a working AutoDoc. Where is it?”  
  
Jenny’s gut clenches. “I sold him about a month ago to a trader headed back west. Once most of my business shifted to treating migrants from Capital Wasteland, he wasn’t pulling in enough revenue to justify keeping him.”

‘You failed to mention him when you were visited by a Brotherhood knight engaged in a requisition mission.”

“The knight asked for medical supplies, which I freely provided.”

The scribe’s face remains dour. “You failed---“

“I did what was asked of me,” Jenny interjects, cutting him off. “I gave what I could. Brotherhood isn’t entitled to anything, I’d remind you, let alone private property. If you’re planning to stand here and browbeat me, I’m sorry to cut you short. I have patients to see and supplies to make.”

“Why does no one here have any memory of the trader?”  
  
“Good bye, sir.” 

“I want an answer!”

Jenny ignores him, instead turning her attention to unlocking her chems cooler. The scribe presses on, voice growing to a shout as she begins a fresh batch of Med-X. She can feel the eyes of the other Bunker merchants and caravaners on them, watching the spectacle.

“You need to leave,” a voice says. It’s one of the guards, one of the guys usually up at the main gate.

“What I _need_ are answers.”

A gun cocks. “I’m not askin’.”

Jenny turns around to find the guard’s gun pressed into the scribe’s skull. Over the scribe’s shoulder, she spies Edie, eyes wide, and Mac, rifle at the ready. As she looks around, Jenny realizes he’s not the only one.

_“Why don’t they infiltrate Bunker?” She’d once asked Deacon. “They could destabilize it. Push more people towards Diamond City.  
_

_“Bunker’s people look out for each other,” He’d replied. “It’s a community. People, hell, a lot of people would notice. “_  
  
“And, it’d be harder to turn them against one another."   


_Deacon nods. “Bunker’s small, but it’s good people.”_

She understands that now.

The scribe looks around and, realizing he’s in no position to protest, assures her the Brotherhood _will_ have words with her, and _will_ discover the location of the AutoDoc in question. She watches him leave from the corner of her eye, and as the others lower their weapons.

“Thank you,” she says quietly to the guard.

“We take care of our own.”

\---

She and Mac spend the rest of the day pointedly not discussing the morning’s events. She spends the rest of the week waiving payment when the others need supplies. She’d laugh if she wasn’t terrified, somehow darkly amused that the world had to end before she’d found true community in the city she’d spent so much of her life in.

It’s hard to miss the way the Brotherhood’s presence spikes in the aftermath. Sure, she’s used to seeing them out on patrol, their clanking power armor and clunky laser rifles, but this is different. There are more of them than she’s ever seen, and they’re taking more liberties. She’s reminded vaguely of the peacekeeping forces deployed to Canada in the aftermath of its annexation; it doesn’t bode well.

The reports trickle in, at first, and then begin to come at a more regular pace. Settlers being asked to surrender any technology. Ghouls being stopped and questioned. Brotherhood patrols establishing more regular routes.

All the while, the vertibirds become an ever-increasing sight overhead.

Soldiers seize the Slog in early May, the local Minutemen garrison powerless to do much beyond offer shelter and direct the former residents towards the Castle.

She knows the noose is tightening, but she’s still taken aback when they seize Diamond City. 

“I can’t stay,” Deacon says after she’s let him in that night. “We know what they’re after.”

“The Brotherhood?"

Deacon nods. “Got any spare Rad-X?”

She nods, and hands him the bottles out of her med kit. “I’d tell you to be careful, but…” She shrugs.

Deacon runs a hand over his face, and his shoulders sag. “You might wanna … lay low for a bit.”

“Something’s coming?”  
  
“They’re –“ He stops himself. “It’s probably nothing.”

Deacon’s face is unreadable behind the glasses, but she swears there’s a flicker of doubt, of worry. There’s a thousand questions she wants to ask, a lifetime’s worth and then some.

 _That’s not how this works_ , she reminds herself.

Instead, she just nods.

He thanks her for the meds and is off into the dark.

She lies in bed that night with a pit in her stomach. Radio Freedom breaks in with news of fighting at the old Mass Fusion plant and she rolls over, covering her head with pillows to drown it out.

She never liked Nick going on stakeouts. He worked neighborhoods as the rule, not the exception; she’d watch him go til he was around the corner, some nagging fear that it’d be the last she’d ever see of him.

Deacon isn’t Nick. If she’s honest, she’s not sure the two would have even gotten along all that well; Nick always said violence was the lowest solution. She’s certain Deacon thinks of it as just another tool --- even if he doesn’t relish it.

 _If Nick were here ---_  
  
She stops herself. If Nick had lived, they would have both died, incinerated into ash or poisoned by the fallout. Quick and horrific, if they were lucky, slow and awful, if they weren’t.

Nick _shouldn’t_ be here. _She_ shouldn’t be here. She and Deacon should have never met, and the Cabots should have survived, and the world should have been quiet. The bombs shouldn’t have fallen and she should have had her baby and she and Nick and the little one should have all grown old. They shouldn’t have left Chicago and she shouldn’t have published that story and they all should have just stayed in their places.

But Nick is dead, and she is here, and the feeling in her stomach _is_ that same old fear, just with a new face attached.

Jenny tries not to think about it too much.

\---

There’s talk around Bunker the next day of the skirmish. There are rumors, rumors that the Railroad stole something, something very important and that the Brotherhood is hunting them in order to get it back. They say the Brotherhood caught someone, but no one can agree if the captive is alive or dead or somewhere in between.

By midday, news hits that Diamond City is on lockdown, that the houses are being searched. No one says anything else about the captive.

Just before three, Kessler makes the call: bar the gates. Jenny sends MacCready back to Goodneighbor, back to his son, then sets out for home.

There’s a soldier in power armor at her door when she arrives, threatening the guard on duty. She contemplates running, making a break for Cabot House, but realizes it would put everyone there in danger, too.

 _Everyone pays the piper sometime_ , she thinks. _Even you_.

“Can I help you, solider?” She calls out as she approaches.

“You’ll need to come with us. You’re wanted by the Brotherhood of Steel for questioning.”

She draws in a deep breath and nods. “Fine. I’ll just need a minute.”

She opens her bag, and rummages for a minute, pulling out her revolver and handing it to the guard. “James,” she says. “Get word to the General.”

“Not Mr. Deegan?”

Jenny shakes her head. “Not this time.”

The guard eyes her skeptically, but finally assents.

“Thanks,” she says, then turns to face the solider. “I’m ready.”

He nods wordlessly, and takes her by the arm. There’s a vertibird waiting near by that she’s directed into before a hood is placed over her head.

She’s unconscious by the time they lift off.

 

 

 


	10. Ten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tw: Non-graphic depictions of torture

She comes to on a rotting concrete floor, a pile of limbs and ache. The small mattress in her cell reeks of mildew and she doesn’t want to know what else. Two bored Brotherhood knights sit outside the bars of her cell, reading.

She pushes herself up slowly and her head spins. She settles for lying back down instead.

The accommodations are a far cry from her last stint behind bars. Back then, she stood accused of sedition and slander, but she had earned those charges in seeking justice for Nick. His police ties meant she’d been afforded some small luxuries: a cell to herself, better food, a modicum of privacy, and time in the yard. Her few requests had been taken seriously, and her meager privileges protected.

 _Hard to hate someone for trying to expose a cop killer_.

Jenny has the distinct impression that she won’t be so lucky this time.

From somewhere else, a man screams. She covers her ears, and curls in on herself.

Not so lucky at all.

After a few minutes, she tries sitting again, pushing herself up slowly. She settles against the wall, next to the bars.

She doesn’t recognize this station; it wasn’t Nick’s, and even if it was, she’s not sure how knowing that would help. For now, her fate rests with powers beyond her control.

She trusts the men who work for her, trusts they’ll find a way to get a message to Preston.

But what does she think will come of that?

Preston’s a good man, and he’s trying to do good things for the Commonwealth. But she can’t expect him to throw his people, his woefully under-armored, under-armed soldiers, against plasma and lasers and power armor. She can’t.

They don’t have an airship. They don’t have vertibirds. Hell, she’s not even sure they have a working suit of power armor.

 _They’re not coming for you_ , she tells herself. _Find your own way out_.

Except, while that’s a lovely sentiment in theory, it’s a completely unrealistic one. Yes, she has a handful of bobby pins in her hair and the wrists of a small child, but she’s fairly certain someone might notice her trying to pick the lock from inside her cell.

 _Probably serrated pins, anyway_ , she muses.

Somewhere out of view, the man screams again.

Jenny bites her flip, and tries to focus on the rest of her surroundings. The walls and the floor are concrete. The bars are rusty, but still solid. There is no window.

Eventually, it comes to her.

 _There is no exit_.

\---

When they drag the man out of the room, he is unconscious, limp and unable to protest the way they haul him across the floor. What she can make out of his face is swollen and purple, with a cut running down his cheek. They toss him into the cell next to her, then turn their attention towards her.

It’s a long time since she’s been in handcuffs, let alone handcuffed to a chair; she can’t say she’s thrilled that this is her reintroduction to the practice.

“Jennifer Lands,” The man across from her begins. “Do you know why you’re here?”

“Because someone in your organization refuses to believe that I sold pre-war tech.”

She won’t let them see fear. If she learned anything from working a crime beat for almost ten years, it’s that fear is what they want. It gives them leverage, lets them under your skin. Fear makes you easy to control.

“Hoarding, failure to report, and inciting violence.”

Jenny offers a single nod, and nothing more.

“Well?”

She shrugs. “I stand by everything I said to your scribe. And I didn’t incite anything,”

“We also have information that you may have abetted a rogue agitator.”

She raises her eyebrows. “I’ve treated a lot of people. I don’t exactly ask about political affiliation when someone shows up in need of care.”

“So, you don’t deny it.”

“I can’t. It’s impossible for me to give you a definitive answer. Like I said, political opinions aren’t on my intake form. Yes, I might have helped a … what did you call it? An agitator? But I’ve helped traders and farmers and even one of your scribes.”

“Synths? Ghouls?”

Jenny locks her gaze with his. “ _Anyone_ who comes to me.”

The man leans back and folds his arms. “You’re in a lot of trouble, Miss Lands. It’d be better ---“

“Doctor,” she says.

The word hangs in the air between them for a moment, and Jenny wonders if she’s lost her mind. She has no degree. Her training, while rigorous, wasn’t exactly formal. There was no internship, no residency. Her degree is in journalism, for god’s sake.

But there it is.

“It’s _Doctor_ Lands,” she presses. “If you’re going to threaten me, you’ll do it with the proper title.”

The man looks unimpressed. “I don’t think you understand the gravity of the situation.”

“You’ve seized settlements and crops and anything else you could get your hands on. You’re terrorizing good people just because they don’t meet your standard for what a person should look like. I’m handcuffed to a chair in some rotting police station god knows where. _No one_ knows where I am. No one’s _coming_ for me. If you think I can’t read the writing on the wall, sir, you’re wrong.”

She swallows hard. _It was a good run,_ she tells herself. _If it ends here, at least you kept Edward out of it; he didn’t deserve to be collateral. You killed Eddie Winter. You did_ something _for the first time since … since Nick_.

 _He would have been proud_ , she tells herself.

There’s no change in the man’s countenance. “Take her back,” he says to the guard over her shoulder. “She’s not ready to give us anything.”

\--

There is no food that night, or water. The man in the cell next to her makes no noise, no movement. She wonders if he’s dead, and they’ve just left him to rot --- a warning for all who might enter.

In the silence, her mind wanders. She kicks herself for failing to have a message passed to Mac, but takes some small comfort in knowing her serum dose is only a few days old, and that her booth fees are paid. She takes a moment to be grateful that her dishes are washed, and to mourn for the produce she is certain will spoil in the refrigerator. She wonders what will happen to her small house if she doesn’t return; she hopes Edward might at least clear it out. She hates to think of it falling to raiders.

She thinks of Edward, and her stomach twists. She couldn’t have told him, couldn’t have risked bringing him into this. He has the house to take care of, and the men and the pool of people he’s built around him. He has to keep Lorenzo sedated, keep him from hurting anyone else. She’s already involved him too heavily, what with hiding Otto in the basement. He would have come; there would have been collateral. She can’t have that.

She finally slips into a dark, dreamless sleep, shattered sometime the next morning by the renewed screams from her fellow captive.

\--

They take almost no interest in her the next day, leaving Jenny to her own devices. She passes the day seeing how much of her reading she knows by heart, how many passages she can quote. The boredom quickly begins to eat at her, and she steals longing glances at a pile of playing cards placed on the guards’ table. The last time she’d be incarcerated, she’d been allowed a pack of her own, and spent her days playing solitaire. It had done a good job keeping her from climbing the walls, keeping her mind on something, _anything_ other than Nick’s body, cold and grey on the coroner’s slab.

Her mind now wanders to Nick, to his voice and his smile, his kindness and his sense of humor. She imagines a different world, one where the bombs had not fallen, where he had not lain dead on the streets. Somewhere, she believes this world exists. Somewhere, there is a world where they married, and brought their baby up together. There is a world without Eddie Winter, or maybe one where they never left Chicago. Somewhere, there is a world where things are different.

Nick is always a detective, though; of that, she is certain. He had too much love for his job, too much passion. His need to help ran too deep for him to have ever been anything else.

Somewhere, she gets to wake up next to him, and kiss him goodnight before going to bed. Somewhere, he gently teases her for falling asleep at her terminal again, hair held up by a worn down pencil. Somewhere, their baby pads across a field of the greenest grass, wobbling towards some grand future.

Somewhere, she is not held captive, listening to a man be tortured for some unknowable reason.

(The man’s voice sounds hoarse, like he has been screaming for too long and without any rest or water. Jenny tries to block it out, as much as she is able.)

Her stomach growls, low and insistent, but she suspects there won’t be any food for a while. She leans her head back against the wall, willing sleep to come again.

Instead, her mind wanders towards Deacon. He knows what’s happened, she suspects, or will soon enough. She hopes he got through safely with whatever part they needed, that it’s stowed far away from the Brotherhood.

She feels a lump of guilt for not having left some kind of message for him. _There wasn’t enough time_ , she tells herself. _You had to get out of there_. _You could have gotten a message to him, or Edward, or MacCready, or Preston, but not all of them. You made your choice_.

She lets out a soft, quiet laugh. _Made your choice_.

She thinks back to that night, years ago when she’d first met Deacon, what she’d said to him in the aftermath. She was so certain for so long that it would be the Institute that came for her, that it would be _that_ choice that did her in. She tried to make peace with it, tried to tell herself that, if they showed up, she’d accept the consequences.

But she’d never had to.

She never planned to make a stand against anyone after that, meant to fly off of radar. She’d carved out her niche, and made a life for herself. That was enough. She wasn’t some young wannabe crusading journalist anymore; that was alright. Going out to pasture wasn’t so bad.

Hell, it wasn’t even a stand, as far as she’s concerned. It was self-interest, pure and simple. She’d spent so much on the damn robot; she wasn’t about to just hand it over.

 _They don’t get to walk all over us_.

The man’s screams cut the air again.

Jenny swallows hard. _No, they don’t get to walk all over us. We survived. We rebuilt. This is ours --- irradiated water, irradiated seafood, and a dearth of indoor plumbing. No one takes it from us._

Us. It’s a funny concept, one that’s far more mutable than she’s ever really considered. A long time ago, it meant her and Nick. And then Nick was gone, and then the rest of the world followed, and us became her little ersatz family: Edward and Jack and Emogene and, yes, even Wilhelmina.

And now it’s become something else again. Maybe it’s the Bunker Hill merchants or the Cabot House regulars. Maybe it’s MacCready and Deacon and Arcade.

Or maybe it’s bigger.

Maybe _us_ is the Railroad and the Minutemen and anyone else who’s ever taken a stand against the Institute, against something unimaginably vast, incredibly powerful, and almost utterly unknowable. Maybe it’s anyone and everyone’s who’s dared to make the Commonwealth a better place, a world that might yet be.

And maybe it’s everyone still ready to take up the fight.

She thinks of Nick, who always believed better angels, in the ability of people to come together to do some good. She’d gently prodded him over it every so often --- _“You’re a cop,”_ she’d said. _“Aren’t the rosy glasses a little misplaced?”_

He’d just shake his head, tell her people could still surprise.

Now, she believes.

\---

They ignore her the rest of the day and through the night. They drag the man back to his cell at some point, and then back out again. In the morning, a new face sits at the table, young and female, with a softness the others lack.

She passes Jenny half a glass of clean water when the others are distracted, a kindness not without risk, Jenny suspects.

“Thank you,” she manages to scratch out.

“You looked thirsty. Thirty-six hours without water is hard.”

Jenny nods, drinking from the glass. “I appreciate it.”

“Why are you here?” The woman asks. “You don’t look like any of the raid suspects.”

Jenny downs the last of the water, before passing the glass back through the bars. “I sold my Auto Doc to a trader who was headed back west. No one believes me, and here I am.”

“Tech hoarding,” the woman clicks. “We’ve seen a lot of it. I’ sure it’ll be resolved. Everyone’s just a little … on edge.”

Someone shifts in another room and the woman hurries back to her seat, trying to avoid any sign of impropriety.

“Anything you’d like to report, scribe?” A voice calls.

“No, sir!”

"Good. I expect it to stay that way.”

Jenny settles against the wall of her cell, grateful for the water and wishing for a hot shower. She drifts off, lulled away by the boredom, and awakens to a knight in an orange jumpsuit looming over her.

“Get up, prisoner.”  
  
She does so slowly, albeit with a wobble in her step that she’s certain doesn’t go unnoticed.

The man clamps a set of handcuffs around her wrists and leads her roughly out of her cell, down a hallway, and into another room. He shoves her down into a wooden chair, before securing her ankles to its legs. There is a single fluorescent tube overhead, sputtering with the effort of illumination. Across from her, similarly restrained is the other prisoner.

His facial features have coalesced into a ragged patchwork of swelling and black eyes, a handful or cuts and abrasions, and a split lip. The front of his shirt, badly torn, is stained with blood.

“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” the man drawls, and Jenny feels her heart stop.

_Oh, fuck. Oh, fucking fuck._

Deacon’s eyes meet hers and she swears there’s a shot of panic in the blue.

“You arrested Bunker’s _doctor_? Who’s next? Diamond City’s DJ?”

Even hoarse, the indignation is palpable.

“So, you know this woman?”

Deacon glowers. “Ask anyone around Bunker and they know her. She’s their _doctor_. She handed out RadAway when the Institute blew. Is medical care now an --- “

The knight backhands him, then turns his attention back to Jenny. “Do you know this man?”  
  
“I mean … he looks familiar? I think? It’s hard to tell with the swelling, honestly. I see a lot of people. I’ve probably sold him a Stimpak at some point?” She stammers.

“So, you admit you’ve had interactions?”  
  
“I … maybe? I see a lot of people? He doesn’t stand out, if ---“

“Yes or no.”

“He remembers me, but I don’t remember him.”

The knight sighs, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. “Let’s see if we can jog your memory, Miss Lands.” He unhooks a long, white baton from his side and fiddles with a dial; it crackles to life with electricity.

Deacon groans. “Hope someone shoves that up your ---“

She shrieks as the knight swings the baton into Deacon’s abdomen, leaving him doubled over and twitching as he screams.

“Do you know this man?” The knight asks again.

“This is barbaric!”  
  
“That’s not an answer, Miss Lands.” He swings the baton again, eliciting another scream.

Jenny flinches. “I don’t know him!”

“Why does he know you?”

“Maybe he bought something from me? I don’t know! I’ve had a lot of customers. I only _know_ a handful of them, and it’s mostly because I see them regularly.”

“When was the last time you had contact with this man?”

“After the Institute blew,” Deacon supplies, earning another blow for his troubles.

“Is that true?”

“Those days were a blur. I saw a lot of people in a short spurt of time, and when I wasn’t dispensing radiation treatment, I was compounding it.”

“How many people is a lot?”

She shrugs. “I don’t have my log book, but it was over 250 doses.”

“That’s a lot for a one woman operation.”

“I didn’t get a lot of sleep.”

“You certain you didn’t have any help?”

“Supply lines from Capital Wasteland were a little more regular. That offset some of it.”

“That’s it?”  
  
“I already told you,” Deacon groans. “She’s not involved.”

Jenny shuts her eyes, refusing to bear witness to the beating that ensues. When she opens them again, Deacon is bent over, gasping.

“In the old world,” the knight begins. “Doctors took an oath: do no harm. If you’re going to insist on styling yourself that way, ask yourself if this is really the least harm you can do.” He kneels down, freeing her legs from the chair. “Why not go ask him? Go on. “

He wrenches her from the chair, and she half falls at Deacon’s feet. She runs two fingers along his neck, just below his jawline, looking for the pulse point. The angle is awkward to catch her watch face from, but it’s a pretense in any case.

It’s an apology, first and foremost. It’s _I’m so sorry._ It’s _I can’t put Edward in danger. I’ve done that enough already_ and _It’d be too many people in harm’s way_. It’s _Please forgive me_ and _I know you might not be able to_ and _I don’t know what to do_.

He gives her a small, almost imperceptible shake of the head, more twitch than gesture, but the meaning telegraphs just fine: _This isn’t on you._

The knight’s arms are under her, dragging her back to the chair before she has time to respond.

“Let’s try this again,” he says, once her feet are secured. “When did you meet with this man to arrange for your tech to be hidden?”

“What?” She balks.

The man brings the baton down hard against Deacon’s back. “Do I need to repeat myself?"

She stares, dumbfounded. “I didn’t!”

Another strike. Another scream.

“Where’s the tech?”

“I told you: I sold it!”

Another.

“I won’t ask again.”

“I don’t have it!”

And a final blow.

Jenny can feel hot tears pricking behind her eyes, a kind of sick terror threatening to overwhelm her. She wants to scream as loud and as long as she can, want to kick and thrash, and do _something_ , _anything_ that might loosen the bonds.

She has no idea what good it would do. Deacon’s obviously in no shape to move, and she can’t carry him. They don’t have weapons. They don’t have allies. There are no places to hide and god knows how many Brotherhood members scattered around. That’s not even factoring in the bit that she doesn’t know where the _hell_ they are.

The knight releases the ties around her ankles and wrenches her up from the chair, dragging her back to her cell. The concrete bruises as she hits the ground, and she forces herself into a sitting position as the gate slams shut. She forces down the bile rising in her stomach, and tries to slow her racing heart.

 _Panic won’t help. Panic won’t help. Panic won’t help_.

Deacon’s screams cut through the air for the rest of the afternoon.

\---

The panic doesn’t subside. It mounts and mounts until it twists her stomach.

Eventually, they drag him back, unconscious again.

She curls in on herself, wracking her brain for some kind of plan, but can only chase her own tail, egged on by terror.

When the adrenaline can no longer carry her, she falls asleep.

The next thing she knows, she is soaking wet and being hauled to her feet. She can just make out the sounds of a rainstorm, but the ceiling is intact. It’s only as they drag her from the cell that she sees the bucket.

Her teeth begin to chatter as they strap her into the chair Deacon had occupied earlier in the day.

Another man is in the room, but she can make out the outline of the same baton from earlier.

Her stomach clenches, and silently, steels herself for what’s to come.

“We don’t have to do this,” the man offers, flicking the switch on the baton and watching as it sparks to life. “You could make this easy on yourself.”

“I already told you everything I have to say,” she offers, feigning more bravery than she feels.

The man nods, and another bucket of water comes crashing over her head, just as icy as the first.

The pain is worse than she could have ever imagined, whiting out the edges of her vision each time the baton makes contact. It’s sharp and searing, the kind of agony she thought only existed in hyperbolic turns of phrase. He brings it down hard against her stomach and she doubles over, almost wretching onto the floor.

The only reprieve comes in moments of attempted questioning, which she spends shaking and vainly trying to regain her breath. But even these brief recesses are punctuated by a fresh bucket of water and an ever more excruciating round of shocks.

She thinks she hears the sounds of battle, one getting closer, but chalks it up to a skirmish with raiders or Gunners or, worse, some sort of pain-induced hallucination.

The sounds grow louder, with sounds and distinct voices. Through her screaming, she swears she can make out Edward’s voice. And that … that almost sounds like Arcade.

The man grows panicked, she swears, fiddling with the wand. Water drips from her forehead as she cranes her neck towards the door, trying to separate reality from her own imagination, catching the man’s arm in the corner of her eye as he raises it again and …

_And, she’s in a car with Nick._

_It’s pouring rain and the car in front of them has its hazards on._

_The radio is playing, and there’s a meager cache of groceries at her feet. She’s not in any pain. In fact, she feels better than she has in a long time. The lights of Chicago dance outside the window, and Roy Eberle’s voice streams out from the speakers. One of Nick’s hands covers hers, their fingers intertwined._

_It’s quiet. Peaceful. The world is intact, untouched by fire._

_She settles back against the seat, relaxing. She slips off her shoes, and curls her feet up under her. She’s always liked being a passenger on nights like this; for all the chaos the traffic causes, and all the accidents brought on by the bad weather, there’s some magical about the way the world looks._

_She turns to ask Nick a question, but he just shakes his head, smile on his face._

_She opens her mouth and …_

_And …_

_And …_

She’s coughing. A lot. And she’s on the floor --- which is new. And there’s some kind of fabric over her --- a lab coat, she thinks. And she’s not sure, but she’s pretty certain that really _is_ Arcade looking down at her, sleeves rolled and panic creasing his forehead.

“Welcome back,” he offers.

Only then does she notice the small, sticky pads affixed to her chest.

“How … long …”

“Cardiac arrest? About forty seconds. Since we shocked you? Few minutes.”

She nods, too overcome by the cough to respond properly. “How’d you …”

“Find you? You’d have to ask Mr. Deagan.”

Jenny’s eyes widen. “Edward’s here? In the middle of Brotherhood---“

Arcade nods.

She scrambles, trying to push herself up.

“Woah, easy,” Arcade says, steadying her. “You were just in _v-fib_ brought on by being _electrocuted_. That’s not even figuring in the broken rib and dehydration. You’re not going anywhere too soon.”

“Is ---“  
  
“He’s fine. The other guy they had in here with you is in even worse shape, if that’s possible, but he’s conscious. The casualties we took weren’t fatal."

She nods, satisfied, and settles back against the floor.

“She alright, doc?”

She cranes her neck up, up, and back, far enough to see Edward in the light of the doorway.

Arcade nods, rising. “As much as she can be.” He glances from Jenny up to Edward. “I’ll give you two a minute,” he says, excusing himself.

Edward settles down next to her, worry and exhaustion in his bones. His armor is splattered with blood, and his hand is bandaged.

“How?” Jenny asks, astonished.

“Your people are loyal enough to disobey you.”

She lets out a small laugh, which quickly becomes a whimper. “It won’t heal a broken rib, will it?”

Edward draws a vial from his chest pocket, and presses it against Jenny’s thigh. “Might do something about the heart damage.”

She lets out a small wince as the needle punctures skin. “Dosed Bobby too. Was surprised to see him again, but he was good people,” Edward adds.

“Yeah,” she groans. “He was here first. Took a hell of a lot more of it.”

He nods, seemingly contemplative. “Why wasn’t I the first call, J?”

She shakes her head. “I … I couldn’t. You’d stuck your neck out so many times for me and with the Brotherhood? No. You got a lot more people on your shoulders these days. It wasn’t just you I would’ve put in danger; it was everyone else. I couldn’t let you do that.”

“Wasn’t your call.”

“You’d already done too much. The house and Otto and … I was sure they were coming for you. I had to put distance there. I wanted to tell you. I didn’t want you wondering. I figured if … if something happened, then at least the General would have asked around. Gotten word to Bunker.” She shrugs.

“And what would I have done? Wondered what happened? Do you know what that would have been like?”  
  
“Do you know what it would have been like to hear they’d shot you? That they’d taken Cabot House, and massacred everyone inside?”

They sit in silence for a few moments, before Edward reaches out, taking her hand in his. “The doc volunteered when he heard I was putting together a group. Glad we had him.”

“He’s got no love for the Brotherhood.”

“That’s putting in mildly,” Edward intones. Jenny laughs again, then swears quietly as her ribs protest.

“I don’t have the warmest feelings for them myself, these days,” she adds. “I’m sure you can’t imagine why.”

They sit in silence for another few minutes, Edward’s thumb brushing gently over her knuckles.

“Thank you,” she finally says. “For … for everything.”

“You don’t leave family behind.”

She squeezes his hand in response, unable to speak through the lump in her throat.


	11. Eleven

Eventually, she finds the energy to move. She works the pads from her skin, wincing as they come loose. She buttons Arcade’s lab coat, several sizes too big, and Edward helps her to her feet.

The main room is littered with corpses, and a small army stands guard. Deacon is propped up against a wall, battered but alert. Edward deposits her next to him.

“We’re almost ready to move,” he says. “Just a few last minute things.”

Deacon nods.

Jenny’s forehead wrinkles. “How? I don’t think either of us can manage the walk.”

Edward offers her a small grin. “A little faith, J.”

“You look terrible,” Deacon says, once he’s sure Edward’s out of earshot.

“At least I can see out both of my eyes.”

“Touche,” he groans.

“Next time I’m in v-fib, I’ll try to come back looking a little more stylish."

“Please do,” he insists, tipping his head back against the wall. “You got any idea where we’re headed?”  
  
“Cabot House would be my guess. Not a bad place to lie low,” she says, closing her eyes. “But it’s an awful risk for them.”

Deacon picks his head up and surveys the carnage surrounding them. “I’ve got a feeling they can handle it.”

She nods. “I just wish they didn’t have to.”

\---

Fifteen minutes later, and they’re staggering out into the rainy darkness. Jenny’s arm is wrapped around Deacon’s waist, below the run of broken ribs. His arm is thrown across her shoulder, hand lingering near the spot on her neck where the baton made contact for the final time.

Under the glow of the floodlights, Jenny can hardly believe her eyes.

“Is that … holy shit, Edward!” She calls. “When did the house get a wagon?”

“Told you to have some faith,” he calls back.

Getting in is less a matter of climbing on and more an affair of collapsing gracefully. She scoots backwards gingerly, fearful of splinters or startling the two brahmin to which the wagon is hitched. When they’re settled, Edward passes them each a shotgun.

“If you catch anything on our flanks, shoot,” he says. “We should be covered, but I don’t want to take any more chances than we have to.”

“Where are we headed?” Deacon asks.

“Back to Cabot House. Doc wants you both under observation for a few days. We’ve got water, food, and space.”

“Edward ---“ Jenny begins, shaking her head. “You can’t. We’re ---“

“I can do what I damn well want, Jenny. Brotherhood can kiss my ass.”

“You’ve got a house full of refugees.”

“Taking on another two for a few days isn’t gonna matter.”

“It is if _they_ show up.”

“It’ll be a bigger problem if you drop dead of a heart issue, and rot in your house. I’m not cleaning up after that,” he says.

Jenny opens her mouth to argue, but finds herself at a loss. “I don’t have clothes.”

“We’ll manage,” Edward tells her. “For now, let me finish the job and get you out of here.”

After a moment, she nods.

“Good."

As he leaves to make final preparations, she notices Deacon biting back a wry smile out of the corner of her eye.

“So,” he says. “That’s what happens when you’ve known someone …”

“240 some odd years? Yeah. There’s a picture of me sitting on Edward’s shoulders when I was three and he was twelve. ”

Deacon chuckles, and undoes the safety on his gun. “That, I would like to see.”

Jenny closes her eyes, and draws in a deep breath. She lets the rain fall on her face, quietly grateful.

“You both ready?” Edward asks.

“Yeah, we’re good,” Deacon answers.

“Wait, Edward, I’ve gotta send someone to Bunker in the morning."

“Kessler already knows, Jenny. I’m guessing everyone else does, too. Right now, only thing you need is a shower and some sleep.”

She nods, appeased.

“Alright, everyone,” Edward calls out. “Let’s go.”

\---

The journey back is quiet, peaceful even. The group on point downs a few raiders, but are spared any serious trouble.

In the back of the wagon, Deacon and Jenny focus on keeping awake.

“This common in your line of work?” She asks.

“The torture or the rescue?”

“The torture.”

“Common, no. But it happens.” He’s quiet for a minute. “It’s a tool, just like anything else.”

Jenny raises her eyebrows, but doesn’t say anything.

“It’s not my favorite tool,” Deacon says. “But, yes, I’ve used it.”

“That was surprisingly forthcoming.”

“I honestly, truly, sincerely do not have the energy to lie to you right now.”

“Too busy keeping back waves of nausea?”

“Yeah. You?”

“You’d better believe it.”

\---

She spends her first hour back in the house curled on the floor of one of the upstairs showers. It had been hers, once upon a time along with the corner bedroom with the lace curtains that let the light shine in, but isn’t any more.

The thought doesn’t hurt the way it once did, doesn’t sit heavy in her chest with the weight of loss. It is not hers, but it is still here for her. It _could_ be hers again; she’d only have to ask. But, somehow, she finds that’s not what she wants.

There is a folded bathrobe next to the bathroom door when she opens it, and a small basket of folded clothes. They were all Emogene’s once, and Jenny offers a thanks to the ether as she slips them on.

Deacon is already asleep in the cot next to her, bundled in sheets with pillows padding his ribs. She settles onto her own cot, ignoring the way her muscles protest as she begins to relax them in earnest. Then, fast as a blink, she too is asleep.

She wakes later that morning to the chimes of the grandfather clock one floor down; ten in the morning and all is well. She makes her way out of bed slowly, both in deference to her still aching body and in an attempt to let Deacon sleep. He doesn’t stir as she shuts the door, and pads down stairs.

The house is mostly empty. Edward had mentioned something to her about using the extra hands to scout for new locations, other places to put folks up if the situation in Capital Wasteland continued on unchecked.

_“Redo a whole building?” Jenny had asked. “Where are you gonna find the parts?”_

_“Parsons was a big facility, J. No point in leaving it all to rot. “_

_“Just be careful going out there,” she’d said. “Don’t take any risks you don’t have to.”_

_“Look who’s lecturin’ who,” Edward had joked. “Trust me, Jenny, after all this time, I can handle it. Just gotta finish out there before the scavengers find it.”_

She finds Arcade at the kitchen table, exhausted and unshaven, halfway through an apple.

“You’re alarmingly cavalier about rummaging through other people’s cabinets,” he says as she reaches for a glass.

“I lived here,” she answers. “A lifetime ago. Blindfold me, and I could still put my hands on whatever you needed.”

“You _lived_ here?”

“Yeah, I worked for the family who owned the place. Remember the doctor who had doctoring in the family? Man who trained me? This was all his once.”

“There’s a whole hydroponic system and garden in the basement.”

She nods. “I know. I used to take care of it.”

“They paid you as a gardener?”

She shakes her head. “Research assistant.”

“ _Research assistant?_ ”

“Research assistant,” she says, settling the kettle on the burner then turning to face him.

“You’re not kidding me, are you?”

She just shakes her head. “You met me not too far after this whole chapter of my life,” she says, gesturing with the empty cup. “Ended. My first real time out on my own.”

“You left all of this?”

“It … wasn’t my choice? Next time we’re out in Goodneighbor, and you’re plastered, I’ll tell you the tale.”

Arcade snorts. “I look forward to it.” He pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “How are you feeling?”

She lets out a small laugh. “I would say ‘like death,’ but that doesn’t feel like much of anything. So, it might be more accurate to say I feel like I got trampled by a brahmin.”

He nods. “Probably fewer internal injuries, but point made. Any lightheadedness, dizziness, shortness of breath?”

She shakes her head.

“Chest pain?”

“I mean, the bruises hurt, but I don’t think that’s the kind of pain you’re asking about.”

“Nothing unusual at all?"

She reaches for the small canister of dried apples, and places a few in the metal ball dangling from the side of her cup. “Plenty unusual, but not medically. Aches and pains consistent with blunt force trauma.”

“And electrocution,” Arcade adds.

“Makes it sound so dramatic. It’s not like I got hit by lightning.”

“I mean, you were in v-fib. Whether it’s an act of the Brotherhood or an act of nature, cardiac arrest is cardiac arrest.”

“Mmm,” she intones as she pours the water in. “I guess.”

“I want to take another reading off of the monitor.”

She nods, wrapping her fingers around the mug. “Just let me know when.”

“After breakfast?”

“Works for me. Think Bobby’s still sleeping upstairs. We can use one of the sofas.”

“In the sitting room?” He asks, incredulously.

“They’ve seen worse.”

\---

Of course, she forgets to account for the possibility of Edward walking through the front door while she’s draped across the couch, wires running out from her chest. She forgets to account for the appearance of it all, and the way it reads to the person who had just seen her back from the dead.

“It’s fine!” She calls when he opens his mouth.

“It’s routine,” Arcade says, rising to his feet. “I wanted another check to make sure there wasn’t any damage.”

“And?” Edward asks, cap in his hand.

“Her heart’s absolutely fine.”

Jenny watches the tension drain from Edward’s shoulders and the color return to his cheeks. “Sorry,” she offers. “I didn’t think about how this would look. Bobby’s still asleep and ---“

Edward shakes his head. “Just as long as it’s nothing bad, J.”

Eventually, she makes her way back upstairs with a fresh pot of apple tea and a pitcher of ice water. Deacon is still asleep when she settles onto her cot, head propped up on pillows and book propped up on her knees. It’s some Raymond Chandler novel that she’s read a dozen times already, but the comfort of familiarity has never been something she’s one to reject.

She’s halfway through her pot when he finally stirs, groaning as he rolls to face her. Without his sunglasses, she can make out every line of wear and worry that past week has added to his face, can see the exhaustion hanging heavy in his eyes.

“Welcome back to the land of the living,” she says, setting the book down.

“I’d like to go back to the land of the unconscious, please.”

Jenny shakes her head, sympathetically. “Wouldn’t we all?”

He struggles to right himself for a moment, then settles back down, instead choosing to surrender to the relative comfort of clean sheets and fluffed pillows. “How’re you holding up?”

“Got a clean bill of heart health. Scared the pants off of Edward. Have tea. Not getting beaten to a pulp. All in all, my life has taken a turn for the positive. Yours?”

“Books and a bed. Water that doesn’t make you glow is a nice bonus.”

\---

They spend the rest of the day between reading and intermittent napping, and take dinner upstairs. There’s a better variety of vegetables than Jenny’s used to, and she makes a note to check the garden in the morning.

She sits in the shower, letting the hot water run over her. She thinks back to her old life, the time before Lorenzo, when Jack would still be puttering around in his lab while Emogene ran wild and Wilhelmina tutted. Though she’s in the same place, partaking in the same rituals, it’s different. _She’s_ different. She thinks of who she is now and who she was then, and wonders when the change happened.

She supposes it was gradual, and likely borne out of necessity. Lorenzo made the house an unsuitable residence; so, with Edward’s substantial help, she’d carved out her own. Living on her own meant she’d needed money, so she’d found a way to make it.

But, if she’s really going to be honest, it started long before that.

It started on that wet August night when a man was shot outside of her bedroom window, and she’d dragged him into the generator shed so he wouldn’t die alone. It started when she’d decided she _could_ do something, that she _could_ give this man her best shot if it meant keeping him on the right side of the river Styx. It started when she was no longer content to accept what happened, but to make some small, maybe futile, effort to change it, when she’d shaken off two hundred years of passive observation of a life she barely lived in favor of trying, of taking action, of putting a foot down and saying _Not this one_.

Yes, it had been gradual.

She towels off and slips on another pair of pajamas, and slips into room lit only by the floodlights on the desiccated green.

Deacon’s not asleep, not yet. She can hear that much in the rhythm of his breath. Still, she decides against broaching any kind of conversation.

The silence hangs between them for a few minutes.

“Jenny,” Deacon says, his voice rough. “I’ve … I need a word.”

She quirks an eyebrow, before realizing he probably can’t make it out through the shadows. “Alright, shoot.”

His sunglasses are off, have been off all day, so he covers his eyes with his hands and takes a breath. “What happened to you? That’s on me.”

“Deacon, I don’t think telling me to stash the Auto Doc translates to you being responsible for the Brotherhood nabbing me. And as I recall, I was the one who volunteered to help you way back when.”

“I wish it were only that.”

“So, what you told them you knew me from Bunker? That was reasonable. I used to run radio ads.”

Deacon draws in a shaky breath. “Look ... I … I knew they were coming for you. Figured if I told you to lay low, figured if we took Liberty Prime, it wouldn’t be an issue. Get rid of their reason for being here and they’d leave. When it all went to shit, it was too late to warn you.”

“It’s not like you handed them the key to the house.”

“I should have gotten you out first.”

“Where would I have gone? Wouldn’t have asked Edward; he’s got enough to protect. Going to Arcade would have dragged him into it.”

Deacon shakes his head. “Eleven years. You don’t think that’s enough to earn you safe harbor? Ticon would have taken you. Mercer. Hell, HQ, if I played it right. I fucked up and you almost died because of it.”

“Forty-five seconds. I’m still here.”

“Only because Gannon got to you when he did.”

“But he _did_ and I’m _here_.”

“He yelled ‘no pulse’ and … Jesus. I’ve lost a lot of people. A _lot_. But you? No one’s hurt like that since … since _her_.”

Jenny’s eyes go wide in the shadow-darkness for a moment.

Love is not a word in either of their vocabularies. Love is a luxury for those not in his line of work, not in her particular state of extended existence. It is for those who are young, those who are whole, those who don’t wear grief like a wound.

“I thought …” She begins. “I thought I had a pretty thick skin when it came to you. The risks weren’t a secret; you didn’t have to explain them to me. You came, you went, and that was it. Sure, it got harder after you were at the house for so long, and yeah, even harder with everything since Jack and Emogene. But, still,” she pauses, nodding. “I thought I had it covered. And then, it was _you_ screaming. And _you_ getting the shit kicked out. I’ve lost someone. Been there. Done that. But there it was, happening all over again, and I was every bit as powerless to stop it.” She shakes her head. “Doesn’t matter how thick my skin is if you’re already under it.”

He lets out a small, quiet chuckle. “Tell me about it.”

Love is not a word in either of their vocabularies. It has been blacked out, purposefully excised to avoid complications.

But censoring the word doesn’t erase the concept, doesn’t keep meaning from bleeding through the gap.

A concept doesn’t need a name to be understood.

“I don’t blame you,” she says after a moment. “Not for any of it. You made the best call you could. Getting me any more involved with your people would have just made things complicated for you.”

“It was the wrong call, and you paid for it.”

“Says the man with four broken ribs,” Jenny says gently. “Listen, I was a shitty Catholic. I think the only person who ever really gets to grant you absolution is yourself. I stand by what I said: I _don’t_ blame you. In so many ways, I got myself into that. I don’t blame me, either. But if what you’re looking for is forgiveness, and you can’t give it to yourself, and it’s what you need to hear, then, _yes_ , I forgive you. I forgive you for whatever you need me to forgive you for.”

“And my penance?” She can hear the tiniest hint of a smile in his voice, something almost approaching relief.

“Forty lashes of the whip,” she jokes, rolling onto her back.

“…Kinky,” he says, uncovering one eye.

“Good _night_ , Deacon.”

“Night, Lands.”


	12. Twelve

 

The next few days pass quickly. By the third, Jenny’s in the garden again, updating the catalogues with the new seeds brought up from Capital Wasteland.

“Figured you’d be down here,” Edward says.

“Am I that predictable? “ She asks, turning to face him.

“Reliable. Yes, you _are_ that reliable.”

She shakes her head, smiling. “The thrill is gone.”

“J, the thrill was never there."

“Damnit, here I was hoping I’d retained some sort of mysterious allure.”

“You have plenty of other things going for you.”

“You talk to Arcade this morning?”  
  
Edward nods. “Says you’re fine to head back to Bunker in the morning. That’s what I’m here about.”

“You’d prefer I didn’t?”

“Nah, I trust the doc. If he says you’re okay, then you’re okay. But I don’t want you making that trek by yourself.”

“You _do_ get nostalgic for walking me to school.”

“You’re incorrigible.”

“That’s not a no.”

“I’d prefer you not go unaccompanied. I know Bobby’s anxious to get back to work, too, but I don’t get the sense the two of you are enough to deal with a whole squad.”

“That’s … probably an accurate assessment.”

“Five broken ribs between you, he’s still got swelling coming down, you’re both still recovering from dehydration, and you think it’s just _probably_ accurate.”

“I was a hellcat once.”

“That was _one_ fight, 230 years ago.”

“I got a fair bit of flesh off.”  
  
Edward grimaces at the memory. “Your grandmother was furious.”

“I remember you being fairly impressed.”

Edward tries to hide his grin. “It was quite the sight, J. “

“You were proud. On some level.”

Edward smiles, but doesn’t contradict her. “Your brawling past aside, I’d rather you took people with you tomorrow.”

“You’re not worried about them and the Brotherhood?”  
  
“I _am_ , but I like the odds better with another four guns with you two.”

“If you can get word to MacCready in Goodneighbor, think we can make it a full seven against any Brotherhood trouble.”

He nods. “I’ll do my best.”

It’s quiet then, for a while, as she returns to cataloguing and sorting, straightening things up.

“Edward said this was your domain,” Deacon offers from the doorway. “So, this is where the apples come from.”

“My proof that the world was once green,” she says, turning to face him. “You look better.”

“Yeah, now, it only hurts when I breathe.”

“Least it wasn’t your collarbone.”

He grimaces. “That’s happened before. Don’t recommend it.”

“You talk to Edward about tomorrow?”

“Heard we’re taking some friends with us.”

She nods. “Maybe MacCready, too, if anyone can get hold of him.”

“He takes good care of you.”  
  
“MacCready?”

“Edward.”

Jenny nods. “Always has.”

Deacon slides into the other empty stool a few feet down from her.

“So, what’s your plan?” She asks after a moment.

“Check in tomorrow. Probably bunk here another night or so. There’s a lot in the works.”

“Looking to spend some more time with our friends in power armor?”  
  
Deacon shakes his head. “Nothing local yet.”

Jenny quirks an eyebrow at him.

“You’ll see.”

She nods.

Silence hangs between them.

“I don’t actually like keeping you in the dark,” he finally says. “I promise you: it’s not a power thing. But plausible deniability still means a lot.”

“You think there’s something coming?”

Deacon presses his lips together, considering his next words carefully. “The next twenty-four hours will tip the scale. I’ll give you a better answer once I know where it landed.”

“Worst case scenario?”

“They come for everyone who’s stood against them.”

Jenny shudders. “Best case?”  
  
“Come on, that’s like saying the name of the Scottish play in a theatre.”

“How do you even---“

“I’ve met some interesting people in my time.”

“Might be more accurate to say you’re _surrounded_ by interesting people.”  
  
Deacon laughs. “You wouldn’t be wrong.” 

\---

The next morning dawns bright, with sunlight streaming in through the lace curtains. Jenny dresses in a haze of memories, remembering market days and the life she once led.

When she makes her way down, MacCready is on the couch, gun slung across his lap.

“You look awful!” He calls.

“Thanks! It’s nice to see you, too.” 

“Been awful quiet without you, boss.”

“I’m sure we’ll remedy that quickly.”

They take the back routes, longer but safer, avoiding any trouble. The doors to Bunker are sealed tight with guards posted at the watchtowers. Jenny finds it both profoundly unsettling and strangely comforting; short of a vertibird strike, there’s no way in for the Brotherhood.

Deacon thanks their escort, tells them he’ll be back for the walk home, then disappears off into the crowd. Jenny watches after him, noticing the way he tips his hat to Stockton in passing.

And then, there she is, back in her stall. Some of the other vendors make their way over to say hello. Edie throws her arms around her in a hug, careful to avoid the damaged rib. Several of the regular traders stop by to disparage the Brotherhood as they purchase Stimpaks and RadAway.

She does not see Deacon.

All in all, the morning is surprisingly normal. She treats some minor wounds, and mixes a new batch of Rad-X.

“Helllooooooo, Wasteland!” A voice calls over the radio sometime after lunch. “It’s me, Three Dog, bringing you the latest and greatest from Galaxy News Radio!”

“The heck?” MacCready asks, jumping to his feet. “This some kind of joke?”

“This was your DJ from back home?”

MacCready nods, eyes wide.

“To our listeners old and new, welcome! We are broadcasting live to you from the Capital Wasteland. We apologize for the unfortunate hiatus, but I guarantee ya, we are here to stay.”

“We interrupt your regularly scheduled broadcast to bring you updates from the battlefield. Just in: the boys and girls of the DC Wasteland have retaken their purifier. That’s right, folks, the purifier is in the cool and capable hands of Rivet City scientists. Vive la resistance!”

“Holy shit,” MacCready gasps. “That thing’s been under Brotherhood control since ‘77!”

“We’ve got the Brotherhood on the run, boys and girls, and we intend to keep it that way. Keep it tuned here to GNR for the latest updates!”

“Since when do we get a DC station?” Jenny asks. “We haven’t gotten a DC station since ---“ She stops herself before the words _before the war_ can fall from her lips.

“Since never,” MacCready says, picking up the sentence’s end. “Hot damn.”

“How big a deal is the purifier?” She asks. “I remember hearing bits and pieces about it a while ago, but…”

“It’s massive. It keeps all of Capital Wasteland in clean water. The Enclave tried to take it just after Rivet City and the Brotherhood got it running, and this kid from Vault 101 kicked their asses. Well, really, it was Liberty Prime, but the kid from Vault 101 made it happen. She was something else.”

“So, the Brotherhood took it back, and kept control over it.”

MacCready nods. “Said they were the best equipped to defend it.”

“Evidently not,” Jenny says.

“Brotherhood wasn’t always like this, boss. They used to pick off the muties on the streets, kept people safe.”

“And then?”

He shrugs. “Things must’ve changed after the second Elder Lyons died. She was still in charge when I left.”

“When was that?”

“Five years ago.”

“You left when you were seventeen?”

“Me and Lucy, yeah.”

Jenny lets out a long, low whistle.

“What?”

“You were both so young.”

“You always say that.”

“I stand by it. “

“When _isn’t_ young to you?”

“I don’t know. Twenty-five maybe? Twenty-seven?”

“So not that long ago for you.”

Jenny slips him a rueful smile. “Longer than you’d think.”

\---

Three Dog bumps Travis again sometime around five, hooting and hollering about the final approach to the Citadel.

“Holy fuck,” MacCready whispers. “There’s no way in hell they’ll breach that.”

“What _is_ it?”

“Big, walled-off complex in the center of DC. Brotherhood HQ. Three Dog used to have a broadcast tower not far from there.”

“MacCready, we’re walled off here, and I’m pretty sure we could still be breached.”

He shakes his head. “It’s not like this. It’s big sheets of metal. Barbed wire. There’s no way they’re getting through that.”

“The better question is: why broadcast it?”

MacCready shrugs. “Must be some reason. Maybe trying to keep people clear?”

“Maybe.”

\---

Deacon’s face is drawn when he makes his way back to her booth at day’s end. The walk back is tense, with more vertibirds overhead and the more-than-occasional clank of power armor.

Back at the house, she retreats to the garden.

“I told you: it would tip the scales,” Deacon says and she jumps.

“Why announce the run against the Citadel on the radio? That didn’t make sense.”

“They didn’t come from over land. They came from underground.”

“You dug tunnels?”

“Brotherhood did. Years ago. Plus, the old sewer network’s still largely intact. Throw in the distraction and some Stealth Boys and you’ve got a halfway decent sneak attack.”

Jenny rubs her forehead. “You don’t—“

“I don’t know anymore than you do. We had some good people on our side, at least. Few ex-Brotherhood, even.”

Her eyebrows shoot up. “You let _ex-Brotherhood_ on this?”

"They’re still our people first. After Sarah Lyons kicked it, people loyal to her and her father left. There weren’t many of them, but still. We sought them out, brought’em into the fold.”

“Ex-Brotherhood?”

“They were a lot less rah-rah, a lot more common good.” 

Jenny nods, disbelief still written on her face.

“Can’t imagine it?”

“Not in a million years.”

“Just cross your fingers that it’s enough,” Deacon says. “It’s our best shot.”

“You think they can hold the purifier?”

He nods. “Brown’s smart. She’s got a pretty sophisticated system rigged up.”

“Brown? Moira Brown?”

“You know her?”

”Wouldn’t go that far, but we corresponded about ten years ago. She had the Alexandria Library tapes.”

“When the Brotherhood went after her for tech hoarding, one of our cells took her in. She’s been doing work for us since.”

“Your people have been busy.”

“We’ve got everything riding on this. Garvey liberating the joint isn’t gonna be much good if they can’t go out and make a life for themselves.”

“But, for now?”

“Now, we wait.”

\---

Dinner that night is loud and raucous, joyful at the possibility of the Brotherhood’s overthrow and terrified of the possibility of swift revenge. Eat, drink, and be merry becomes the evening’s edict. The good bourbon is brought out, along with a crate of wine someone had brought north with them from DC.

She excuses herself early, telling Edward to come for her if there’s news. He smiles gently, nodding in quiet understanding.

Deacon knocks a few minutes later, and she calls for him to come in.

“Don’t have to knock. It’s as much your room as mine.”

“Habit,” he offers. “When you live with a lot of people in tight quarters, spares you a lot of angry roommates.”

Jenny lets out a small laugh. “I can imagine that. I love everyone here, but I just …”

“Needed a break?”

She nods. “All people, all the time isn’t something I’m used to anymore.”

"It can be a lot."

He settles onto his cot, rubbing at his eyes.

"I'm surprised you're here tonight."

"Why?"

"Thought you'd be out, waiting for news."

Deacon shakes his head. "It's too many anxious people in a space that's too small."

"Instead of the ones celebrating downstairs?"

Deacon grins. "I avoid premature celebrations as a rule, but I can appreciate the optimism." He pauses, his face darkening around the edges. "From a distance, at least."

Jenny nods, flopping back down on her cot. "I don't have a good feeling." 

"Common occupational hazard."

"How do I make it stop?"

"Usually? By putting a bullet in what's causing it."

"Let's hope it doesn't have to come to that."

\---

Come morning, the Citadel has been wrested from Brotherhood control. Three Dog's voice is ebullient over the airwaves. Jenny vacillates between a kind of giddy excitement (because someone, _someone_ has struck a real blow against the bastards) and terror  (because wounded enemies are, in her experience, the most dangerous).

They open a bottle of the good bourbon after dinner and raise a toast: _Long live the abominations._

\--

Slowly, she falls back into routine. She wakes in the morning and gets dressed; she walks to Bunker with Deacon and a handful of guards; she tends to patients and sells basic goods; she walks home. There is life and cooking and joyful noise. They listen to the updates from DC. After a few days, she throws her arms around Edward, and thanks him for everything, for saving her again, for food and comfort and safe harbor, and makes her way home under heavy guard.

It's good to see her people. It's good to stand in her kitchen. It's good to throw out the rotted produce and wash the dirty linens and sink down into her own couch.

Deacon helps, carrying things out to the dumpster and straightening errant piles. He is quiet, but strangely at ease, one hand resting on Jenny's back as he grabs a glass from the nearby cabinet.

"So, what next?" She asks him as they sit on the couch that night, radio humming quietly in the background.

"Back to work. We've still got synths to re-settle. And we're not clear of the Brotherhood yet."

Jenny reaches for her beer. "Haven't been that many vertibirds out the past few days."

"Bastards are probably regrouping."

"Think they'll make a move for DC?"

Deacon shakes his head. "They've got unfinished business here."

Jenny quirks an eyebrow, but doesn't say anything. There are days she wants details, days she wants to know. She's kept every secret these past eleven years; hasn't she earned his trust? Hasn't she won the right to know?

But on those days, she remembers that while knowledge may, in fact, be power, it is also vulnerability. It is the threat of jeopardizing not only your own life, but the lives of so many others. She's taken on enough responsibility; she doesn't really want to take on any more. 

They sleep on the couch that night, Deacon's arm slung over her side and her face pressed against his neck. In the morning, she can't help but notice the faint crop of ginger stubble beginning to stake its claim across his scalp. She runs a fingertip along his jaw, enjoying the bristle against her skin. 

"I'll see you later?" He asks.

She nods. "Go. Be safe."

\---

He's not there that night, or the next, or the one after.  
  
Jenny tries not to think about it. What had she _really_ expected to change?  Their circumstances certainly hadn't. The Brotherhood was still afoot, there were still synths in need of rescue. Deacon was still Deacon.  
  
Acknowledging the elephant isn't the same as addressing it, a fact she'd somehow managed to forget.

Slowly, word of Brotherhood patrols begins to spread once again. She takes care making the journey to and from Bunker, more guns or guards than a doctor should ever really merit. She listens closely when the broadcasts from Washington cut in, as if the failure or success of those brave souls might augur their own fate.

And she watches.

She gets glimpses of him here or there, a face that's a maybe, dark sunglasses or some threadbare jacket, high tops with a coat of dust too red to have come solely from Boston. 

She listens, too, for his voice, for his chuckle, for the southern California accent that she'll never be able to reconcile with his claims of a Commonwealth upbringing. She'd call him a liar, but that would imply she wanted the truth.

She wants _him_.

The thought lingers longer than she'd like it to, far too visceral and far too vulnerable for her comfort. It isn't prudent. It isn't wise.

It is never going to happen. They live in the real world. There is the matter of his profession, her age, their circumstance --- and that's ignoring the larger problems. Their respective grief would swallow them whole, ensnare them in the trap of who was versus who is.

There would be _consequences_.

It still might be worth it.

\--

Finally, _finally_ , she sees him.

It is late, and the house is dark when she hears the key in the lock. His face is drawn and his shoulders are tense. She understands the implication immediately: there's been a problem.

“I know that look,” she says. “What happened?”  
  
“Brotherhood scouts around HQ.”  
  
“Any chance it was a fluke?”  
  
He shakes his head. “Too systematic for that.”

“So, they know.”  
  
He nods. “Yeah, they know. It was enough warning to evacuate and purge what we had, but it means the clock is ticking before they find us again.” He sighs. “If they haven’t already.”

Jenny shudders. “I’m taking it you have a plan.”

“Calling it a plan might be generous. What I have is a shot in the dark.”

Jenny raises her eyebrows. She wants to ask, can feel the questions bubbling up, but refuses to open her mouth, refuses to let them escape.

Deacon doesn’t miss the gesture. “We’ve got a plan to get on board the Prydwen and we’ve got a plan to take out Liberty Prime. Whether they’ll both go off is a whole different matter.”

“Please, tell me not another bomb. I don’t have nearly what I’d need to cover people again.”

He shakes his head. “Even if we went that route, Liberty Prime’s not so prime. They’re missing the power source; it’s what they first came here looking for.”

“Why here?”  
  
“Mass Fusion. They had the beryllium agitator the Brotherhood needed. We have it now.”

“And that’s how they got you.”

Deacon nods. “Look,” he says after a moment. “The Brotherhood is coming. We’ve got one chance to do some damage. I have to take it. I’m gonna try to do it with as little collateral as I can; you’ve got my word on that. But it’s the Brotherhood, and that comes with risks.”

“Just come back.” She tells him before she can stop herself, or even really process what she’s said.

“I can’t promise anything.”

“What happened to ‘ask me no questions; I’ll tell you fewer lies?’”

Deacon sighs. “I got sloppy.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means …” His shoulders droop. “You really need me to tell you?”

Jenny stares at him, bewildered.  
  
“If this all goes sideways, I don’t wanna die knowing the last line I gave you was my usual bullshit.”

Her expression remains unchanged.

Deacon sighs, and pushes his glasses up on top of his head. “You’re … special. Whatever it is we have going on? Yeah, I’d like not to fuck that up. I’m not gonna make you a promise I’m not _damn_ sure I can keep.”

“Words and actions,” she says, after a moment.

“Yeah, words and actions.” He takes a deep breath. “If this all goes to hell, you know.”

She nods. “Yeah, I do.”

“Good,” he says, bringing the glasses back over his eyes and pressing a kiss to her forehead.

She squeezes one of his hands, and then he is gone, off into the night.

\---

She lies in bed with the radio on that night, listening as Travis's voice shakes. There is fighting, some kind of massive skirmish, at the Airport. Someone is attacking the Brotherhood, but the Brotherhood is throwing everything at them. The Minutemen claim to have no involvement. No one knows who or what is responsible; some fear it is the Institute, risen from the radioactive ash.

\---

The house is too quiet the next day.

\---

She tries not to think about it. She tries to focus on her patients and her compounding, on the reports of booming explosions at the Airport and the conspicuous absence of the Brotherhood's airship.

Three Dog cuts in sometime after lunch to whoop and holler about our friends to the north sending the Brotherhood running, tail between their legs. He mentions nothing of casualties, nothing of collateral.   
  
She is left only to wonder.

\---

There is a growing pit in her stomach, the unmissable sense that something is wrong. She goes out with Arcade, watches as he rolls a cigarette against the counter of the Third Rail. Magnolia's voice croons through the din, and Jenny picks at the loose hangnail dangling from her thumb.

The mood is different. There is joy, yes, but it is far more subdued. It is quiet relief, rather than exuberant jubilation. The Institute had loomed large and lingered far too long; its influence had corroded far too much. The Brotherhood simply couldn't compare.

Still, a threat is a threat and a victory is a victory.

\---

She spends the night at Cabot House, staying up late with Edward and the DC refugees, digging deep into the house's supply of good alcohol. Edward eyes here worriedly over her fourth bourbon, but mercifully, does not ask, just leaves her towels and clothes for a shower once the booze begins to dry up.

She walks home the next morning, apples interspersed with medical supplies in her bag, and the hint of a hangover behind her eyes.

When she opens the door, Deacon is there, asleep on her couch, bloodied and bruised and whole and alive, She watches his chest rise and fall for a moment, not quite believing in his existence until she reaches out to gently grasp his shoulder.

"Deacon," she says quietly. "Deacon."

He wakes with a start, then relaxes again. "It's over. It's done."

"I know," she says, kneeling down next to him.

"They're gone. That fucking airship, it's headed somewhere else. Prime's in pieces. Maxson's dead. A bunch of the others, too. We lost some good people."

"I'm sorry," she says softly.

He shakes his head. "We won, though. We won. We're safe."

She rests a hand against his cheek, finger brushing against a bruise. "Come on, let's get you cleaned up."

He showers and she makes breakfast. She throws his clothes in with her laundry, and thanks the universe that Edward managed to salvage her a washer and dryer from Parsons. They eat together, Deacon looking more at ease in her bathrobe than she would have expected.

"It's uncanny," she offers. "Pink really _is_ your color."

He just laughs. "I'm full of surprises."

\--

He spends most of the next week in bed, reading and rereading the books on her shelves. His sunglasses are off as often as they're on, and there's a languidness about him, a looseness she hasn't seen before.

She spends her days conspicuously not thinking of him, standing at the bathroom sink, towel around his waist and razor in hand; in bed in a soft, fraying tee shirt, sunglasses on his head and book in hand; washing dishes in the kitchen, humming under his breath.

She is _really_ too old for this.

She should say _no_ when he hands her the bottle of vodka, explaining that the vintner at the Slog had decided to expand his product range. She should say _no_ because drinking leads to talking and talking leads to questions. She should say  _no_ because vodka has always loosened her tongue like nothing else, and _that_ is the fastest way to learn if actions, actions that have always spoken so much louder than words, have consequences.

But, instead, she says _yes_. She says _yes_ to his mouth on hers, _yes_ to fumbling with the buttons on his shirt,  _yes_ to stumbling into bed, _yes_ to his fingers finding the spots even she had forgotten. She says _yes_ the next morning, sober and comfortable in bed, clothes from the night before still littering the floor, and _yes_ the night after that.

There are consequences, though. A drawer in her dresser that no longer stands empty. A razor in the medicine cabinet. Another tea cup, another place setting, another glass to wash at night.

Jenny is not naive. Things will last, or they won't. They will have difficult conversations, conversations about serums and futures and work and _consequences_ , conversations that will ache. There is still so much death can touch and, if that happens, she knows she will wonder if it was worth it.

But those are problems for another day, another time. For the moment, she is content to simply be here with him.

\---

A knock comes the next afternoon at the door, a boy in a tattered leather jacket with a flatcap pulled low over his brow and a message. Deacon leaves with a wink, walking off to god knows where to do god knows what. He’ll be back. Jenny is sure of it.

She and Edward are sitting out on the small balcony off of the second floor, watching what they can of the sunset through the husks of the bombed out city. It’s almost pretty, almost lovely, almost a million other things.

But it is what it actually is.

Deep down in her bones, she is tired. She has done so much, and yet there is so much still to do. Her leg aches from the most recent injection and she is still covered in the grime of the day. She has treated so many for radiation exposure, but there are still so many more who still need help; even all this time after the Institute’s destruction, the people of the Commonwealth are still paying its toll.

But, for the moment, she’s going to sit on the balcony with her friend, and have a beer.

“I’m dating Bobby. Sort of,” she volunteers.

Edward eyes her over his beer bottle. “That’s new.”

She shrugs. “We never really got out of each other’s orbit after, well, you know. He actually found me at the Rexford that night, made sure I had a glass of clean water and locked the door behind me. Kept running into one another after that. Wasn’t planning on it, just happened.”

“I wasn’t judging, J.”

“I know. It’s just … “

“Not your MO?”

She nods.

“You figure what you’re gonna tell him about---“

“He already knows.”

“You told’im?”

“ _I_ didn’t. Emogene did. When he and Don went to---“

“So, _that’s_ how the sonofabitch knew. God _damnit_ , Emogene. I always wondered.”

Jenny nods. “So, it wasn’t really a surprise.”

“What are you two gonna do about…?”

“We’ll burn that bridge later.”

Edward lets out a small chuckle. “There’s the Jenny I know.”

They sit in comfortable silence for a few minutes.

“Does it ever stop?” Edward asks. 

"Does what stop?"

"I walk through the house and still expect to hear his voice. It's been months."

“210 years you’ve lived with me. What do you think?” Jenny asks, turning to face him.

Edward looks small, defeated.

“It gets manageable,” she offers. “That crushing weight of loss isn’t quite as sharp. It doesn’t dig at your chest with the same kind of ferocity. You learn to live around it. It takes a long time, though.”

Edward lets out a sigh. "Just have to keep living."

Jenny nods. "Ain't that the truth?"

"Always is, J. Always is."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you SO SO much for reading this! This was a labor of impossible!ship love and I'm so happy to share it with you. If you enjoyed, please consider leaving kudos or a comment (they make my day) and if you're interested in my other writing, follow me on tumblr as trbl-will-find-me for updates :)


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